Species: Camellia reticulata
English Name: Common Tutcheria
Chinese Name: 石筆木
Family: Theaceae
Description:
Trees or shrubs, (2-)4-15 m tall. Young branches grayish brown; current year branchlets green to pale brown, thick, pubescent but glabrescent. Petiole 6-13 mm, pubescent or glabrescent; leaf blade oblong to oblong-elliptic, rarely elliptic to broadly elliptic, (4-)6-10(-14) × (2.5-)3-5(-6.3) cm, leathery, abaxially pale green and sparsely appressed pubescent or glabrescent, adaxially dark green, shiny, and glabrous, midvein yellowish green, abaxially elevated, and adaxially level, secondary veins 6-8 on each side of midvein and raised on both surfaces, reticulate veins visible to slightly raised on both surfaces or adaxially impressed, base cuneate, broadly cuneate, or rarely rounded, margin serrulate, apex acute to shortly acuminate and with an obtuse tip. Flowers axillary or subterminal, solitary or to 3 in a cluster, 7-10 cm in diam. (to more than 20 cm in diam. for some cultivars), subsessile. Bracteoles and sepals 9-11, caducous after anthesis, green, imbricate, increasing in size from outer to inner, thinly leathery, both surfaces velutinous, margin narrowly membranous; outer bracteoles and sepals orbicular, 3-5 mm; inner bracteoles and sepals broadly ovate, to 2 cm. Petals 5-7 (often more for some cultivars), rose to pink, rarely almost white, obovate to broadly obovate, 4-6 × 3-4.5 cm (larger for some cultivars), apex emarginate; inner petals connate for ca. 1 cm. Stamens 3-4 cm, glabrous; outer filament whorl basally connate for 1-2 cm. Ovary globose, 3-4 mm in diam., tomentose, 3(-5)-loculed; style 2.5-3.5 cm, glabrous or basally with pubescence, apically 3(-5)-lobed or parted. Capsule green turning pale brown, globose to oblate, 3.5-4 × 4-5 cm, 3(-5)-loculed with 1 or 2 seeds per locule; pericarp ca. l cm thick and firmly fleshy when fresh but 5-6 mm and stiffly leathery to woody when dry. Seeds brown, semiglobose to globose, 1-1.5 cm in diam. Fl. Jan-Mar, fr. Sep-Oct. 2n = 30*, 60*, 90*.
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