AbstractGaultheria leucocarpaand its varieties form a clade of aromatic shrubs that is widely distributed in subtropical and East Asian tropical regions. The group is taxonomically difficult and in need of thorough taxonomic investigation. This study focused on taxonomic delimitation within theG. leucocarpagroup from mainland China. Field surveys covering the distributional range ofG. leucocarpain mainland China were conducted, wherein four populations from Yunnan and one from Hunan were found bearing morphological and habitat differences. A 63‐species phylogenetic tree ofGaultheriabased on one nuclear and three chloroplast markers that included samples from theG. leucocarpagroup was reconstructed with maximum likelihood to clarify the monophyly of theG. leucocarpagroup. Taxonomic relationships among populations were investigated with morphology and population genetics, the latter by using two chloroplast genes and two low‐copy nuclear genes. Based on the sum of morphological and genetic analyses, we described three species ofGaultheriaas new to science, clarified the taxonomic status ofG. leucocarpavar.pingbienensis, elevating it to the species level, and resurrectedG. crenulataand treated the varietiesG. leucocarpavar.crenulata, andG. leucocarpavar.yunnanensisas synonyms of this species. We provide a key to the five species now recognized, along with descriptions and photographs.