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Camellia (after George Joseph Kamel or Camellus, a Moravian Jesuit, who travelea in Asia in the seventeenth century). Ternstroemiaceae. Camellia. Woody plants, chiefly grown for their showy white or red flowers and also for their handsome evergreen foliage.
Evergreen trees or shrubs with alternate short-petioled serrate lvs. and large terminal or axillary white or red fls. followed by subglobose woody caps.: fls. sessile, upright; sepals many, imbricate, deciduous; petals 5 or more; stamens numerous, more or less connate; ovary 3-5-celled, with slender styles connate, at least below: fr. a dehiscent caps.,with few large subglobose seeds.—About 10 species in tropical and subtropical Asia. Often united with Thea, which differs in its nodding and stalked fls. with a persistent calyx consisting of 5 nearly equal sepals. There is a monograph of this genus by Seemann in Trans. Linn. Soc. 22:337-352 (1859) and by Kochs in Engler Bot. Jahrb. 27:577-634 (1900). Illustrated monographs of the horticultural varieties are: Curtis, Monogr. of the genus Camellia (1819); Baumann. Bollweiler Camelliensammlung (1828); Chandler, Camellieae (1831); Berlese, Monogr. du genre Camellia a (1839); Verschaffelt, Nouvelle Monographie du Camellia (1848-1860): the last with 576 and the previous one with 300 colored plates.
Camellias grow like natives on sandy lands and even on high pine land in central Florida, but they flower best in half-shady somewhat moist places. The half-double varieties of Camellia japonica do best, while the very double kinds often drop their buds entirely. The flowers suffer very much from the sun and cannot be grown much farther south than central Florida. Camellia Sasanqua, single, half-double and double kinds, grow much more satisfactorily than the varieties of C. japonica. They begin to flower late in October and early November, and the double white C. Sasanqua is a mass of pure white usually at Christmas time. All the varieties of C. Sasanqua have somewhat fragrant flowers. C. reticulata does equally well in Florida. It ia very distinct in foliage from the two former species which have glossy leaves, while the leaves of C. reticulata are dull green. All the camellias are extremely slow growers if not carefully cultivated and fertilized. A mulch of old cow-manure, now and then a little commercial fertilizer, and thorough watering during the dry season several times a week start the bushes into a vigorous and healthy growth. They are so extremely beautiful when in flower that all the care given them is well repaid. (H. Nehrling.)
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