连蕊茶 lian rui cha

Shrubs or trees, 1-5 m tall. Young branches yellowish brown to grayish brown; current year branchlets straw colored, slender, glabrous or very minutely puberulent when young, soon glabrescent. Petiole 2-5 mm, glabrous or puberulent; leaf blade leathery to thinly leathery, oblong-elliptic, elliptic, or oblong-lanceolate, 5-7.5(-11) × 1.5-3(-4) cm, abaxially pale green and glabrous, adaxially dark green, slightly shiny, and hirtellous along midvein, secondary veins 6-8 on each side of midvein and obscure on both surfaces, base cuneate to broadly cuneate, margin serrulate, apex bluntly acuminate to caudate. Flowers axillary or subterminal, solitary, 2-3 cm in diam. Pedicel 2-8(-15) mm, thickened toward apex; bracteoles 3 or 4, persistent, ovate to semiorbicular, 1-2.5 mm, abaxially glabrous, pubescent, or puberulent. Calyx cupular, 2.5-10 mm; lobes 5, persistent, unequal, broadly ovate, semiorbicular to suborbicular, 2-5(-8) × 2-5.5, thinly leathery, outside glabrous, pubescent, or puberulent, inside puberulent, basally connate for 1-5(-7) mm, margin membranous, apex obtuse. Petals 5-7, white or pale red, obovate or elliptic to suborbicular, 1.3-2.5(-5) × 1-1.6(-3.5) cm, basally connate for 3-3.7 mm and adnate to androecium, apex truncate to emarginate. Stamens 1.5-1.8 cm; filaments glabrous or inner whorl sparsely pubescent; outer filament whorl basally connate into a 3-8 mm tube. Ovary ovoid, ca. 1.5 mm, glabrous, 3-loculed; style 1.5-2.2 cm, apically 3-lobed for 2-3 mm. Capsule globose, 1-2 cm in diam., l-loculed with 1 seed; pericarp green or reddish, becoming brown when dry, ca. 1 mm thick. Seed brown, globose, ca. 1 cm in diam. Fl. Dec-Apr, fr. Aug-Oct. 2n = 30*.

● Forests, thickets, thickets along riverbanks; (100-)500-1500(-2200) m. S Anhui, Fujian, N Guangdong, N Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, S Shaanxi, Sichuan, S Yunnan, Zhejiang.