Crapnell's Camellia

Shrubs or trees, 2-10 m tall. Year-old branchlets reddish brown; current year branchlets green, glabrous. Petiole 6-12 mm, glabrous, adaxially channeled; leaf blade elliptic to oblong-elliptic, 7-19 × 3-6 cm, rigidly leathery, abaxially pale green and brown glandular punctate, adaxially dark green, midvein abaxially elevated and adaxially impressed, secondary veins 7-9 on each side of midvein, abaxially raised, and adaxially obscure, base cuneate to broadly cuneate, margin widely and obscurely denticulate, apex bluntly cuspidate. Flowers axillary or subterminal, solitary or paired, 4-10 cm in diam., subsessile. Bracteoles and sepals 7-13, ± persistent, semiorbicular to suborbicular, 0.3-2 cm, outside tawny tomentellate, inside glabrous. Petals 6-8, white, obovate to obovate-oblong, 3.5-6.5 × 2-4 cm, basally connate for 2-5 mm, apex rounded to emarginate. Stamens very numerous, 1.5-1.7 cm; filaments glabrous; outer filament whorl basally connate for ca. 5 mm. Ovary ca. 2 mm in diam., densely tomentose, 3-5-loculed; styles 3-5, distinct, ca. 1.5 cm, basally pubescent to tomentose. Capsule grayish brown, subglobose, 5-7(-12) cm in diam., 3(-5)-loculed with 3-5 seeds per locule; pericarp 5-10 mm thick, woody, furfuraceous, splitting into 3-5 valves; columella persistent, thick. Seeds brown, semiglobose, 1.5-2 cm in diam., glabrous. Fl. Dec-Jan, fr. Sep-Oct. 2n = 30*.

Fujian, Guangdong, S Guangxi, E Jiangxi, S Zhejiang.

● Forests; 100-800 m.

Camellia gigantocarpa Hu & T. C. Huang; C. latilimba Hu; C. multibracteata Hung T. Chang; C. octopetala Hu; Thea crapnelliana (Tutcher) Rehder.

Fruit of Camellia crapnelliana

Camellia crapnelliana, Crapnell's camellia (Chinese: 紅皮糙果茶 or 克氏茶), is a flowering Camellia native to Hong Kong and other parts of south-eastern China.

In 1903, the species was first collected and described by W. J. Tutcher from Mount Parker, Hong Kong; only one plant was found at that time.