Camellia cuspidata Hort.

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*.

S Anhui, Fujian, N Guangdong, N Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, S Shaanxi, Sichuan, S Yunnan, Zhejiang.

● Forests, thickets, thickets along riverbanks; (100-)500-1500(-2200) m.

Camellia cuspidata, also known by the common name cuspidate camellia, is a species in the genus Camellia, in the family Theaceae. It is native to China, specifically the west. It occurs in the provinces of Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang.