Clethra canescens var. canescens
Content
Description
Tree up to 20 m, bole up to 40 cm ø, covered with greyish bark;
Branchlets covered with a woolly-floccose rufescent, later greyish tomentum at the tips.
Leaves elliptic or obovate-elliptic, apex shortly subacutely acuminate, base cuneate, thin-coriaceous, entire below, regularly serrate with callose teeth c. 1 mm long, younger ones glabrous above, ± densely set with minute stellate ± rusty hairs on midrib, nerves, veins and veinlets, and with sparse, longer simple or fascicled hairs on the midrib beneath, glabrous on the intervenium beneath, mature ones glabrescent, generally (4-)5-8(-11) by (2-)2.5-4cm, at higher altitudes constantly smaller, (2.5-)3-5(-6) by (1-)1.5-2 cm, nerves 10-12 (rarely up to 15) curved-ascendent pairs, which rather distinctly inarch before the edge, veins slightly prominent, veinlets rather inconspicuous beneath;
Petals obovate, crenulate all along the margin, glabrous, white (or suffused with red initially), with a rather unpleasant smell, 3-4 by c. 2 mm.
Ovary villous;
Capsule subglobose, tomentulose, 2.5 mm ø.
Seeds irregularly ovoid-angular, 0.8-1 mm.