平果金花茶 ping guo jin hua cha

Shrubs 1-3 m tall. Young branches grayish yellow; current year branchlets purplish red, slender, glabrous. Petiole 6-10 mm, glabrous; leaf blade ovate to long ovate, 5.5-7.5(-9.5) × 2-3.8 cm, thinly leathery, abaxially pale green and brown glandular punctate, adaxially dark green and shiny, both surfaces glabrous, midvein raised on both surfaces, secondary veins 6 or 7 on each side of midvein, abaxially raised, and adaxially
visible to obscure, base broadly cuneate to obtuse, margin serrulate, apex acuminate to acute. Flowers axillary or subterminal, solitary, 1.5-4.5 cm in diam. Pedicel 3-5 mm; bracteoles 5 or 6(or 7), not covering pedicel, ovate to semiorbicular, 0.5-1.5 mm, membranous, glabrous or outside farinose puberulent, margin ciliolate. Sepals 5, suborbicular, 2-8 mm, outside farinose puberulent, inside white puberulent, margin ciliolate. Petals 7 or 8, pale yellow; outer 2 or 3 petals suborbicular, 6-8 mm; inner petals obovate, 10-13 × 6-10 mm, basally connate for 1-2 mm. Stamens 7-9 mm, glabrous; outer filament whorl basally connate for ca. 3 mm. Ovary subglobose, ca. 1 mm in diam., glabrous, 3-loculed; styles 3, distinct, 6-9 mm. Capsule globose to subglobose, 2-coccal, 1.2-1.5 × 1.5-3 cm, (1 or)2(or 3)-loculed; pericarp 1-1.5 mm thick. Seeds brown, hemispherical, ca. 1 cm in diam., glabrous. Fl. Dec-Jan, fr. Sep. 2n = 30*.

● Forests on calcareous hills; 100-500(-700) m. Guangxi (Pingguo, Tiandeng).