膜叶茶 mo ye cha

Shrubs or trees, 2-5 m tall. Young branches pale brown, glabrous; current year branchlets purplish brown, sparsely yellow puberulent; terminal buds pale yellow sericeous. Petiole 4-6 mm, sparsely pubescent or glabrescent; leaf blade thinly elliptic to oblong-elliptic, (8-)9-15 × (3-)3.5-5.5 cm, leathery, abaxially pale green and very sparsely appressed pubescent when young but glabrescent, adaxially dark green, shiny, and becoming yellowish green to pale brown when dry, midvein abaxially elevated and adaxially slightly raised, secondary veins 8 or 9 on each side of midvein and clearly raised on both surfaces, reticulate veins slightly raised on both surfaces, base broadly cuneate, margin serrate, apex shortly acuminate. Flowers axillary, solitary or paired. Pedicel 3-5 mm, erect, sparsely pubescent or glabrescent; bracteoles 2, caducous. Sepals 5, persistent, broadly ovate to suborbicular, 6-7 mm, glabrous, margin membranous and ciliolate. Petals only seen in bud, 7-9, white, obovate, 1-1.3 cm, basally slightly connate. Stamens glabrous; outer filament whorl basally slightly connate for ca. 1.5 mm. Ovary glabrous, 3-loculed; style ca. 1 cm, apically 3-parted. Capsule globose or 2-coccal, ca. 2 × 2-3 cm, 1- or 2-loculed with 1 seed per locule; pericarp ca. 1 mm thick. Seeds brown, globose, ca. 1.4 cm in diam. Fl. Nov-Dec, fr. Sep-Oct. 2n = 30*.

● Forests, thickets; 600-900 m. W Guangxi.