Scientific name: Camellia curryana Orel & Luu
English name:
Vietnamese name: Trà cu-ry
Other name:

Perennial, small to medium evergreen shrub of variable habit, to 2.5 m high; rather sparsely branched, rarely multi-stemmed, with upright habit; new shoots reddish – brown, puberulent, without striations; older twigs glabrous, shiny, dark green toward terminals, turning entirely dark cinna-mon brown on semi-mature branches; older branches light brown to gray and smooth to slightly furrowed; adult trunk grey – brown, smooth, dull, glabrous, lacking furrows or striations. Petiole linear to slightly falcate and distinctly concave, slightly wider proximally, narrowing distally, sometimes twisted, dark green – reddish and shiny above, light green and shiny beneath and of the same colour as the abaxial leaf surface, up to 10.0 mm long, 2.0 – 3.0 (4.0) mm wide distally, ascending, with the lamina declined at an angle of 45 °from the petiole, ridges less than 1.0 mm high on each side of the adaxial petiole, forming a shallow, flat channel; axillary buds small, roughly triangular, green to brown, bud scales prominent, covered with fine white indumentum, narrow elliptic with sharp apex; terminal buds initially covered with fine, white indumentum, later glabrous or nearly so, laterally compressed, elliptic, slightly falcate, with sharp apex, 10.0 – 15.0 mm long, up to 5.0 mm wide; developing leaves mid-green, glabrous, firm and rigid, slightly variable in size and shape, ascending; mature leaves regularly serrate at the base, but irregularly serrate to entire towards the apex, 10.0 – 12.0 cm long, 4.0 – 5.0 (6.0) cm wide; lamina thick, coriaceous, elliptic to oval, sometimes asymmetrically falcate, leaf apex variable, acute to obtuse, their base variably obtuse to acute; adaxial leaf surface glabrous, dark green and shiny, lighter green and dull below; primary vein up to 3.0 – 4.0 (5.0) mm wide proximally, less than 1.0 mm distally, yellowish – green and shiny on both sides, adaxially slightly sunken, abaxially prominent; secondary venation pinnate, indistinctly bro-chidodromous, partially eucamptodromous on some leaves (Roth-Nebelsick et al. 2001), with 7 – 9 pairs of veins adaxially sunken, abaxially slightly prominent; veins dis-tinct proximally, less so towards the apex and the margins; tertiary venation very indistinct, sometimes lacking, more prominent at the leaf margins. Flowers almost sessile, unevenly circular in shape, terminal and axillary, lacking scent; senescing flowers with extremely reflexed petals; peduncle stout, short, covered by perules, 4.0 – 5.0 mm long; flower buds numerous; terminal buds pressed tightly together in groups of 3 – 5; axillary buds solitary, generally elliptical, distally not sharp, 1.0 – 1.5 cm long, 6.0 – 8.0 mm wide, initially green, then mostly light brown; brown bud scales cover all of the bud, these scales only partially covered by short, thick and white tomentum; flowers 6.0 – 6.5 (7.0) cm in diameter, some mature flowers with extremely reflexed petals, soft, shiny, partially translucent, rarely emarginate, except for some petals that form outer petal whorl, crinkly, with slightly undulate margins, white to cream, proximally yellowish to cream on abaxial surface, glabrous, lacking midrib, with distinct proximal venation in the centre of the petal, which fans out distally; six to seven proximally overlapping petals in two whorls; the outer whorl of 3 petals ca 3.0 cm long, 2.0 – 2.5 cm wide, slightly concave, sometimes asymmetric, oblong-broadly oblong, to obovate in shape, slightly overlapping with pet-als of the inner whorl, proximally joined to outer stamens for 4.0 – 5.0 mm; the inner whorl of 3 to 4 petals, variable in size, 2.5 – 3.0 cm long, 1.5 – 2.5 cm wide, slightly con-cave, slightly asymmetric, distinctly obovate, basally attached to outer stamens and to the inner petal whorl; peduncle partially covered with 2 or 3 green, later brown, deciduous and undifferentiated perules which are tightly appressed to sepals; perules roughly semi orbicular, 6.0 – 7.0 mm long, 4.5 – 5.0 mm wide; sepals transitional to perules tightly appressed to the outer petal whorl, two or three, orbicular to triangular, thin, paper like, brown, 1.0 – 1.5 cm long, 1.0 – 1.5 cm wide, persistent after anthesis, finely hairy, later glabrous or nearly so; stamens numerous (250 – 300), intensely yellow, in a circular forma-tion that is 2.5 – 3.0 cm in diameter; outer stamens joined proximally for 4.0 – 5.0 mm, thus forming a shallow cup which is attached to the inner petals; inner stamens gla-brous and dull, free or almost free, up to 14.0 mm long; filaments intensely yellow, thin, less than 1.0 mm wide, proximally slightly thickened and lighter yellow, distally very thin; anthers yellow, slightly brownish on margins, ca 2.0 mm long, 1.0 mm wide, acuminate to obtuse at the distal end, cordate at proximal end; styles three, 12.0 – 14.0 mm long, 1.0 mm or less wide proximally, even less distally, proximally fused for ca 2.0 mm, finely pubescent, more so proximally, almost glabrous distally, yellowish – green; stigma indistinct, slightly darker than the rest of the style, with outward leaning apices; gynoecium superior, almost diamond shaped, with slight longitudinal striations, 2 – 4 carpellate, each carpel not always bi-locular, densely whitely tomentose, less so proximally, more distally, otherwise yellowish – green, 2.0 – 3.0 mm long, 3.0 – 4.0 mm wide distally. Mature fruit light brown, unevenly globose to distinctly elliptical, with 2 – 4 internal chambers, its surface roughly textured, sometimes slightly tuberculate, glabrous, 2.0 – 2.5 cm wide, 3.6 – 4.0 cm long; peduncle stout, 4.0 – 5.0 mm wide, 4.0 – 5.0 mm long, corky and glabrous; capsules dehiscing into three parts, or longitudinally into two halves; seed dark brown to black, shiny, laterally partially compressed, variable in size; each capsule with 3 – 5 seeds.

Phenology. The new species was collected in flower in February; fruits matured in May – July, with capsules dehiscing in late July.

Distribution. Camellia curryanais known only from the type location which is situated on the foot hills of an unnamed mountain on the Da Lat Plateau. Th e species ’ precise provenance details are withheld for conservation reasons.

Ecology, distribution and conservation status. The area of discovery is covered by dense rainforest and is estimated to measure less than 1 km 2. Th e new species occurs in small and rather scattered groups of plants that form a part of the dense under storey. Camellia curryana thrives in poor, relatively wet, but well drained soils and in low light conditions. The author was not able to find another specimen of C. curryanain any Vietnamese herbarium. Despite repeated searches (in 2004 and 2005) of the area around the type locality, only some 20 adult plants were located. Given this situation, we consider the IUCN category of ‘ Critically Endangered ’ (CR) to be appropriate (IUCN 2011).