大萼毛蕊茶 da e mao rui cha

Camellia cratera Hung T. Chang; C. trigonocarpa Hung T. Chang.

Shrubs or trees, 3-8 m tall. Young branches grayish brown; year-old branchlets grayish white, glabrescent; current year branchlets slender, puberulent. Petiole 2-4 mm, puberulent; leaf blade oblong to oblong-lanceolate, 5-9 × 1.5-2.5 cm, thinly leathery, abaxially pale green and glabrous, adaxially olive green, shiny, and hirtellous along midvein, secondary veins 6 or 7 on each side of midvein and obscure on both surfaces, base cuneate to broadly cuneate, margin serrulate, apex long caudate. Flowers axillary, solitary or paired. Pedicel ca. 2 mm, elongating to 5 mm in fruit; bracteoles 4 or 5, ± covering pedicel, semiorbicular, 1-2.5 mm, both surfaces densely puberulent, margin ciliolate. Calyx cupular, 7-8 mm; lobes 5, obovate to suborbicular, 4-5 × ca. 5 mm, both surfaces densely gray puberulent. Petals 5-8, white or rarely purplish white in bud, farinose-puberulent; outer 2 or 3 petals distinct, suborbicular, 1-1.5 × 1-1.5 cm; inner 5 petals broadly obovate, ca. 2 cm, basally connate for ca. 6 mm. Stamens 1.5-1.8 cm; outer filament whorl basally connate for 1-1.8 cm, glabrous; inner filaments sparsely pubescent to subglabrous. Ovary densely white tomentose, 3-locular; style ca. 1.6 cm, base pubescent, apically 3-parted. Capsule subglobose, 1.5-1.8 cm in diam., 1-loculed with 1 seed; pericarp ca. l mm thick, thinly leathery, splitting into 2 valves. Seed brown, subglobose, 1-1.4 cm in diam. Fl. Dec, fr. Sep-Oct. 2n = 30*.

● Dense forests, thickets; ca. 800 m. E and N Guangdong, SE Hunan.