Shrub to 5 m tall. Branchlets soft-hairy. Leaves elliptic, 4-8 cm long. Flowers white, 2-3 cm wide. Sepals strongly silky hairy. Petals 5-6, flushed pink outside. Flower stalks a few millimetres long. Filaments white, fused into a tube from one half to two thirds their length at the base. Ovary hairless with one fertile chamber.
Species grown under this name are sometimes of hybrid origin.
China, Vietnam, Laos
White flowers, pink-flushed on the outside of the petals, stamens fused for at least half their length. Sepals extremely silky hairy.
There are several closely-related species:
C. lutchuensis has 8 bracts and sepals 1-3 mm long (the flowers are clove-scented).
C. rosiflora has sepals 6-9 mm long but 6-8 bracts.
C. transnokoensis like the former has sepals 1-3 mm long but with only 4 overlapping bracts (also similar to C. cuspidata but differs in having shoots, flower stalks and sepals densely hairy).
Source: (1997). Camellia. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 2. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 1. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
