Camellia melliana Hand.-Mazz.

Shrubs 1-1.7 m tall. Young branches grayish brown; year-old branchlets with indumentum ± persistent; current year branchlets slender, densely spreading villous. Petiole 1-2 mm, densely villous; leaf blade oblong to oblong-lanceolate, 2.5-4.5(-6.5) × 1-1.5 cm, thinly leathery, abaxially pale green and sparsely villous with indumentum more dense along midvein, adaxially dark green and hirtellous along midvein, base rounded, margin undulate-denticulate, apex bluntly acuminate. Flowers axillary, solitary, ca. 1.5 cm in diam. Pedicel 2-3 mm; bracteoles 4, ovate, 0.5-1.5 mm, outside villous. Sepals 5, broadly ovate to suborbicular, 2-2.5 mm, outside villous, inside glabrous. Petals 5 or 6, white, obovate, 7-12 × 6-10 mm, outside farinose-puberulent, basally connate for 1-3 mm, apex rounded. Stamens 7-10 mm; outer filament whorl basally connate for 4-7 mm, distinct part densely white villous. Ovary yellow tomentose, 3-loculed; style 8-10 mm, densely pubescent, apically 3-parted for ca. 1 mm and glabrous. Capsule subglobose, 1-1.2 × 0.9-1 cm, 1-loculed with 1 seed, apex shortly conic; pericarp thin; columella abortive. Seed brown, subglobose. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. Nov.

C Guangdong.

● Thickets; 400-700 m.

Thea melliana (Handel-Mazzetti) Merrill.