In this study, a total of 99 741 unigenes were de novo assembled based on the bud transcriptome sequencing of Camellia tetracocca Zhang. Totally, 23 732 SSRs were detected in 18 552 unigenes, accounting for 23.79% of all the unigenes. The total length of unigenes containing SSR loci was 226 158 bp. The mean distance between SSRs was 1/2.07 kb and the mean length of the repeat motif was 9.53 bp. Di-nucleotide repeats were the most abundant followed by tri-nucleotide repeats, making up about 47.53% and 25.92% of the total SSRs, respectively. Among the 181 repeat motifs, AG/CT, A/T and ACC/GGT were the most frequent motifs in di-, mono- and tri-nucleotide repeats, accounted for 41.38%, 22.10% and 6.49%, respectively, and which totally accounted for 69.97% of the total SSRs. These results will provide abundant sequences for SSR markers development on Camellia tetracocca Chang.