The endemic 'Taiwanese wild tea' represents all invaluable natural resource for the tea industry. The taxon is distributed in the central, southern and eastern regions of Taiwan with populations shrinking dramatically in the past decade. Taxonomically, it has long been treated as a lower taxon either under Camellia sinensis var. sinensis or C. sinensis var. assamica. Nevertheless, our recent morphological Study indicated that this taxon is different from the other two taxa. In this report, we provide molecular evidence for reassessing its systematic status. Samples representing all the wild populations that are available in Taiwan were sequenced along with samples from the other two taxa at the introns 12-16 and 23 of the RPB2 gene Of nuclear DNA. Phylogenetic analysis recovered a monophyletic group of 'Taiwanese wild tea' well separated from the other taxa. In addition, genetic distances and previous phenetic analyses all supported the identity of this species. A new combination of C formosensis (Masamune et Suzuki) M. H. Su, C. F. Hsieh ef C. H. Tsou is proposed herein.
