Hong Kong Camellia

Shrubs or trees, 2-10 m tall. Year-old branchlets grayish brown; current year branchlets reddish brown, glabrous. Petiole 0.7-1.3 cm, glabrous, adaxially grooved; leaf blade oblong, oblong-elliptic, or oblong-lanceolate, 6-12.5 × 2-4 cm, leathery, abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green and shiny, both surfaces glabrous, midvein abaxially raised and adaxially impressed, secondary veins 7-10 on each side of midvein, abaxially raised, and adaxially visible to slightly raised, base cuneate to obtuse, margin entire or obscurely undulate-denticulate, apex acuminate to shortly acuminate. Flowers subterminal, solitary, subsessile. Bracteoles and sepals 9-11, imbricate; outer 4-6 bracteoles and sepals caducous after anthesis, lunate to suborbicular, 3-10 mm, both surfaces gray velutinous; inner 5 bracteoles and sepals caducous or persistent in fruit, sepaloid, broadly obovate to obovate, ca. 2 cm, crustaceous, both surfaces gray velutinous. Petals 6 or 7, red, broadly obovate, 3-3.5 × 1.5-2.3 cm, basally connate, apex emarginate. Stamens 2.5-3 cm, glabrous; outer filament whorl basally connate for 1.3-2 cm. Ovary globose, ca. 2 mm in diam., densely tomentose, 3-loculed; styles 3, distinct, 2.8-3.3 cm, glabrous. Capsule brown, globose to oblate, 2-2.5 × 2.5-3.5 cm, 3-loculed with 1 or 2 seeds per locule; pericarp 2-3 mm thick when dry, furfuraceous, splitting into 3 valves. Seeds brown, semiglobose to globose, ca. 1.5 cm in diam., glabrous. Fl. Dec-Jan, fr. Aug-Sep. 2n = 30*.

Guangdong.

● Forests; 200-300 m.

Camellia integerrima Hung T. Chang; Thea hongkongensis (Seemann) Pierre.