Camellia transarisanensis (Hayata) Kanehira

Shrubs 1.5-3 m tall, many branched. Young branches grayish brown, glabrous; year-old branchlets purplish brown, with indumentum ± persistent; current year branchlets yellow spreading villous and hirsute. Petiole 1.5-3 mm, spreading villous and hirsute; leaf blade elliptic, oblong-elliptic, or ovate-lanceolate, (1.6-)2-4.8 × 1-1.7 cm, thinly leathery, abaxially pale green and sparsely appressed villous or glabrescent, adaxially dark green and hirtellous along midvein, midvein raised on both surfaces, secondary veins obscure, base broadly cuneate, margin crenulate-serrulate, apex obtuse, bluntly acute, or acuminate. Flowers axillary, solitary or paired, ca. 2.5 cm in diam. Pedicel 2.5-4 mm, thickened toward apex; bracteoles 3-5, triangular to broadly ovate, 0.5-1.5 mm, outside yellow villous. Calyx cupular, ca. 4 mm; lobes 5, broadly ovate to suborbicular, 2-3 mm, outside densely yellow villous, inside glabrous, margin ciliolate. Petals 5 or 6, white, obovate to broadly obovate, 1.1-1.8 × 0.8-1.3 cm, basally connate for 3-6 mm, apex rounded to emarginate. Stamens 1.3-1.6 cm, glabrous; outer filament whorl basally connate for ca. 1 cm. Ovary ovoid, 1-2 mm, glabrous; style 1.1-1.4 cm, apically 3-parted for ca. l mm. Capsule subglobose, ca. 1.5 cm in diam., 1-loculed with 1 seed; pericarp thinly leathery. Seed brown, globose, 1-1.2 cm in diam. Fl. Mar, fr. Oct.

Fujian, N Guangxi, S Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi, Taiwan, SE Yunnan.

● Thicket; below 100-500 m.

Thea transarisanensis Hayata, Icon. Pl. Formosan. 5: 10. 1915, based on T. parvifolia Hayata, Icon. Pl. Formosan. 3: 45. 1913, not Salisbury (1796); Camellia handelii Sealy; C. parvifolia Cohen-Stuart; Theopsis transarisanensis (Hayata) Nakai.