Camellia tsaii Hu

Shrubs or trees, 1-7.5(-10) m tall. Older branches grayish brown, glabrous; young branches slender; current year branchlets gray, densely appressed-pubescent. Petiole 3-5 mm, pubescent; leaf blade oblong-lanceolate, lanceolate, or narrowly lanceolate, 5-10 × 1.5-3 cm, papery, abaxially pale green and sparsely villous along midvein, adaxially dark green, shiny, and hirtellous along midvein, midvein abaxially raised and adaxially impressed, secondary veins 8-10 pairs and slightly raised on both surfaces, base cuneate to broadly cuneate, margin minutely serrulate, apex long acuminate to caudate. Flowers axillary, solitary or paired, ca. 2.5 cm in diam. Pedicel 2-5 mm, glabrous; bracteoles (3 or)4 or 5, semiorbicular to broadly ovate, 0.5-1.5 mm, outside pubescent, margin ciliolate. Calyx shallowly cupular, 2.5-5 mm; lobes 5, broadly ovate to suborbicular, 2-2.5 mm, thinly leathery, outside appressed pubescent, inside sericeous, margin narrowly membranous and ciliolate, apex with a dark point. Petals 5, white, obovate to broadly obovate, 1.5-1.7 cm, basally connate for 2-3 mm, apex rounded to emarginate. Stamens 1.1-1.4 cm, glabrous; outer filament whorl basally irregularly connate for 4-7 mm into a cup. Gynoecium 1.4-1.7 cm, glabrous. Ovary ovoid, ca. 1.5 mm in diam., 3-loculed; style 1.2-1.5 cm, apically 3-parted for 4-5 mm. Capsule ovoid, ca. 1.5 cm in diam., 1-loculed with 1 seed, apex apiculate; pericarp thinly leathery, splitting into 3 valves. Seed chestnut brown, globose, ca. 1.3 cm in diam. Fl. Feb-Mar, fr. Sep-Oct. 2n = 30, 60.

SE and SW Yunnan [N Myanmar, N Vietnam].

Evergreen broad-leaved forests, thickets; 1500-2600 m.

Camellia callidonta Hung T. Chang; C. crassipetala Hung T. Chang; C. pseudoelongata Hung T. Chang & S. X. Ren; Thea fusiger Gagnepain; T. tsaii (Hu) Gagnepain.