Species: Camellia sinensis
English Name: Tea; Tea Plant
Chinese Name: 茶
Family: Theaceae
Description:
Shrubs or trees, 1-5(-9) m tall. Young branches grayish yellow, glabrous; current year branchlets purplish red, white pubescent; terminal buds silvery gray sericeous. Petiole 4-7 mm, pubescent, glabrescent; leaf blade elliptic, oblong-elliptic, or oblong, 5-14 × 2-7.5 cm, leathery, abaxially pale green and glabrous or pubescent, adaxially dark green, shiny, and glabrous, midvein ± raised on both surfaces, secondary veins 7-9 on each side of midvein and ± raised on both surfaces, reticulate veins visible on both surfaces, base cuneate to broadly cuneate, margin serrate to serrulate, apex bluntly acute to acuminate and with an obtuse tip. Flowers axillary, solitary or to 3 in a cluster, 2.5-3.5 cm in diam. Pedicel 5-10 mm, recurved, pubescent or glabrous, thickened toward apex; bracteoles 2, caducous, ovate, ca. 2 mm. Sepals 5, persistent, broadly ovate to suborbicular, 3-5 mm, outside glabrous or white pubescent, inside white sericeous, margin ciliolate. Petals 6-8, white; outer 1-3 petals sepaloid; inner petals obovate to broadly obovate, 1.5-2 × 1.2-2 cm, basally connate, apex rounded. Stamens numerous, 0.8-1.3 cm, glabrous; outer filament whorl basally connate for ca. 2 mm. Ovary globose, densely white pubescent, tomentose, or subglabrous, 3-loculed; style ca. 1 cm, glabrous or base pubescent, apically 3-lobed. Capsule oblate, 2-coccal, or rarely globose, 1-1.5 × 1.5-3 cm, 1- or 2-loculed with 1 seed per locule; pericarp ca. l mm thick. Seeds brown subglobose, 1-1.4 cm in diam. Fl. Oct-Feb, fr. Aug-Oct.
Photos used under a Creative Commons license
References:
– Wu ZY, Raven PH, Hong DY (eds) (2007). Flora of China, Volume 12: Hippocastanaceae through Theaceae. Science Press, Beijing, and Missouri Bot Garden Press, St. Louis