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Shrubs or small trees, rarely large trees, evergreen. Leaves petiolate or rarely sessile and amplexicaul; blade leathery to thinly leathery; margin serrate, serrulate, or rarely entire. Flowers axillary or subterminal, solitary or rarely to 3 in a cluster. Subgenus Thea: flowers clearly pedicellate; bracteoles differentiated from sepals, 2–10, spirally arranged, persistent or caducous; sepals 5 (or 6), persistent, distinct or basally connate. Subgenus Camellia: flowers apparently sessile, actually with a short stout pedicel completely covered by bracteoles and sepals at anthesis; bracteoles and sepals not differentiated, c. 10, caducous or persistent. Petals 5–8 (–12), white, red, or yellow, basally ±connate. Stamens numerous, in 2–6 whorls; outer filament whorl basally ±connate into a tube and adnate to petals; anthers dorsifixed, 2-loculed, longitudinally and laterally cleft. Ovary superior, 3–5-loculed; placentation axile. Capsule globose or oblate, 3–5-loculed, sometimes reduced to 1-or 2-locules by abortion, loculicidal into (1–) 3–5 valves from apex; columella persistent or lacking. Seeds globose, semiglobose, or polygonal; testa horn-like; hilum umbilicate; cotyledons full and fleshy with high oil content; endosperm absent.
