Camellia rhytidocarpa H. T. Chang & S. Y. Liang

Shrubs or trees, 3-10 m tall. Current year branchlets pale brown, ribbed, glabrous. Petiole 0.8-1.2 cm, glabrous; leaf blade oblong to lanceolate, 4.5-12 × 1.5-3.5 cm, leathery, abaxially pale green, sparsely pilose along midvein, and becoming pale brown when dry, adaxially dark green, shiny, and glabrous, secondary veins 7-9 on each side of midvein, midvein and secondary veins raised on both surfaces, reticulate veins adaxially ± impressed, base broadly cuneate to obtuse, margin apiculate-serrulate, apex long acuminate to caudate-acuminate. Flowers axillary or subterminal, solitary or paired, 2.5-4 cm in diam., subsessile. Bracteoles ca. 3, caducous, lunate to semiorbicular, both surfaces gray sericeous. Sepals 5 or 6, ± caducous, broadly ovate to suborbicular, ca. 1.5 cm, both surfaces gray sericeous. Petals 5 or 6, white, obovate to long obovate, 2.5-4 × ca. 1.5 cm, basally connate for 8-10 mm, apex emarginate. Stamens 2-3 cm, glabrous; outer filament whorl basally connate for 1-1.3 cm. Ovary minutely rugulose, apically white tomentose, 3-loculed; styles 3, distinct, 2-3 cm, white tomentose except apex. Capsule globose or 2-coccal, 2-2.5 cm in diam. or less, 1- or 2-loculed with 1 or 2 seeds per locule; pericarp tuberculate. Seeds brown, globose to semiglobose, 1-1.3 cm in diam., reddish brown villous. Fl. Nov, fr. Sep.

N and NE Guangxi, SE Guizhou, SW Hunan.

● Forests; 500-1500 m.