Camellia costei Leveille

Shrubs or trees, 1.5-5(-8) m tall. Young branches grayish brown, slender; year-old branchlets glabrous or glabrescent; current year branchlets grayish yellow shortly pubescent. Petiole 2-5 mm, pubescent; leaf blade elliptic to oblong-elliptic, 5-8 × 1.5-3.5 cm, papery to thinly leathery, abaxially pale green and strigose or glabrescent, adaxially dark green, slightly shiny, and hirtellous along midvein, midvein raised on both surfaces, secondary veins 6-8 on each side of midvein, abaxially slightly raised, and adaxially visible, base cuneate, broadly cuneate, or obtuse, margin serrulate to crenulate-serrulate, apex bluntly acuminate to caudate. Flowers axillary, solitary. Pedicel 2-5 mm, elongating in fruit, pubescent; bracteoles 4 or 5, semiorbicular to triangular-ovate, 0.5-1.5 mm, outside apically densely pubescent, margin ciliolate. Calyx cupular, 3-4.5 mm; lobes triangular-ovate to ovate, 1.5-3 mm, outside apically densely pubescent, inside glabrous, margin ciliolate. Petals 5(-7), white or pale purplish red in bud, obovate to broadly obovate, 1-2.5 cm, basally connate for 3-5 mm, apex emarginate. Stamens 1.2-1.8 cm, glabrous; outer filament whorl basally connate into fleshy tube for (4-)5-9 mm. Ovary ovoid, ca. 1 mm, glabrous; style 1-1.7 cm, apically 3-lobed, lobes ca. 0.5 mm. Capsule subglobose, 1-1.5 cm in diam., 1-loculed with 1 seed; pericarp green to purplish red, leathery, becoming dark brown and crustaceous when dry. Seed chestnut brown, subglobose, 0.9-1.3 cm in diam., smooth. Fl. Feb-Mar, fr. Sep-Oct. 2n = 30*.

N Guangxi, Guizhou, W Hubei, W Hunan, E and W Sichuan, NE and SE Yunnan.

● Forests, thickets; 400-1500(-2000) m.

Camellia dubia Sealy; C. subacutissima Hung T. Chang; Thea costei (H. Léveillé) Rehder.

Camellia costei là một loài thực vật có hoa trong họ Theaceae. Loài này được H.Lév. mô tả khoa học đầu tiên năm 1911.

贵州连蕊茶（学名：Camellia costei）为山茶科山茶属的植物，为中国的特有植物。分布在中国大陆的广西、湖北、广东、贵州、湖南等地，生长于海拔540米至1,430米的地区，多生长于山坡林缘、山坡林中、山坡灌丛、山坡密林中、山脚、林中及疏林中，目前尚未由人工引种栽培。