Camellia
Encyclopedia
Camellia, the camellias, is a genus
of flowering plant
s in the family
Theaceae
. They are found in eastern and southern Asia
, from the Himalaya east to Korea
and Indonesia
. There are 100–250 described species
, with some controversy over the exact number. The genus was named by Linnaeus
after the Jesuit botanist Georg Joseph Kamel
from Brno
, who worked in the Philippines
, though he never described a camellia. This genus is famous throughout East Asia
; camellias are known as cháhuā (茶花) in Chinese, "flowering tea", an apt designation, as tsubaki (椿) in Japanese
, as dongbaek-kkot (동백꽃) in Korean
and as hoa trà or hoa chè in Vietnamese
.
The most famous member – though often not recognized as a camellia – is certainly the tea plant (C. sinensis). Among the ornamental species, the Japanese Camellia (C. japonica) (which despite its name is also found in Korea and Eastern China) and C. sasanqua are perhaps the most widely known, though most camellias grown for their flowers are cultivar
s or hybrids.
Camellias are evergreen
and small tree
s up to 20 meters tall. Their leaves are alternately arranged, simple, thick, serrated, and usually glossy.Their flowers are usually large and conspicuous, one to 12 cm in diameter, with five to nine petals in naturally occurring species of camellias. The colors of the flowers vary from white through pink colors to red; truly yellow flowers are found only in South China and North Vietnam. The so-called "fruit
" of camellia plants is a dry capsule
, sometimes subdivided in up to five compartments, each compartment containing up to eight seed
s.
The various species of camellia plants are generally well-adapted to acid
ic soils rich in humus, and most species do not grow well on chalk
y soil or other calcium
-rich soils. Most species of camellias also require a large amount of water, either from natural rainfall or from irrigation
, and the plants will not tolerate drought
s. However, some of the more unusual camellias – typically species from karst
soils in Vietnam
can grow without too much water.
Camellia plants usually have a rapid growth rate. Typically they will grow about 30 cm per year until mature – though this does vary depending on their variety and geographical location.
Camellia plants are used as food plants by the larva
e of a number of Lepidoptera
species; see List of Lepidoptera that feed on Camellia. Leaves of the Japanese Camellia (C. japonica) are suceptable to the fungal
parasite Mycelia sterile (see below for the significance).
Camellia sinensis
, the tea plant, is of major commercial importance because tea
is made from its leaves. While the finest teas are produced by C. sinensis courtesy of millennia of selective breeding
of this species, many other camellias can be used to produce a similar beverage. For example, in some parts of Japan
, tea made from Christmas Camellia (C. sasanqua) leaves is popular.
Tea oil
is a sweet seasoning and cooking oil made by pressing the seeds of the Oil-seed Camellia (C. oleifera), the Japanese Camellia (C. japonica), and to a lesser extent other species such as Crapnell's Camellia
(C. crapnelliana), C. reticulata
, C. sasanqua and C. sinensis. Relatively little-known outside East Asia
, it is the most important cooking oil
for hundreds of millions of people, particularly in southern China
.
named PF1022A. This is used to produce emodepside
, an anthelmintic
drug
.
Mainly due to habitat destruction
, several camellias have become quite rare in their natural range. One of these is the aforementioned C. reticulata, grown commercially in thousands for horticulture and oil production, but rare enough in its natural range to be considered a threatened species
.
reported that the "Japan Rose", as he called it grew wild in woodland and hedgerow, but that many superior varieties had been selected for gardens. He was told that the plant had 900 names in Japanese. Europeans' earliest views of camellias must have been their representations in Chinese painted wallpapers, where they were often represented growing in porcelain pots.
The first living camellias seen in England were a single red and a single white, grown and flowered in his garden at Thorndon Hall
, Essex, by Robert James, Lord Petre, among the keenest gardeners of his generation, in 1739. His gardener James Gordon was the first to introduce camellias to commerce, from the nurseries he established after Lord Petre's untimely death in 1743, at Mile End
, Essex, near London.
With the expansion of the tea trade
in the later 18th century, new varieties began to be seen in England, imported through the British East India Company
. The Company's John Slater was responsible for the first of the new camellias, double ones, in white and a striped red, imported in 1792. Further camellias imported in the East Indiamen were associated with the patrons whose gardeners grew them: a double red for Sir Robert Preston in 1794 and the pale pink named "Lady Hume's Blush" for Amelia, the lady of Sir Abraham Hume
of Wormleybury
, Hertfordshire (1806). By 1819, twenty-five camellias had bloomed in England; that year the first monograph appeared, Samuel Curtis's, A Monograph on the Genus Camellia, whose five handsome folio colored illustrations have usually been removed from the slender text and framed. Camellias that set seed, though they did not flower for more than a decade, rewarded their growers with a wealth of new varieties. By the 1840s, the camellia was at the height of its fashion as the luxury flower. The Parisian courtesan Marie Duplessis
, who died young in 1847 inspired Dumas' La Dame aux camélias
and Verdi's La Traviata
.
The fashionable imbricated formality of prized camellias was an element in their decline, replaced by the new hothouse orchid. Their revival after World War I as woodland shrubs for mild climates has been paralleled by the rise in popularity of Camellia sasanqua
.
Today many other camellias are grown as ornamental plants for their flowers; about 3,000 cultivar
s and hybrids have been selected, many with double flower
s. The Japanese Camellia – often simply called "the camellia" – is the most prominent species in cultivation, with over 2,000 named cultivars. Next are C. reticulata with over 400 named cultivars, and the Christmas Camellia with over 300 named cultivars. Popular hybrids include Camellia × hiemalis|C. × hiemalis (C. japonica × C. sasanqua) and Camellia × williamsii|C. × williamsii (C. japonica × Camellia saluenensis|C. saluenensis). They are highly valued in Japan and elsewhere for their very early flowering, often among the first flowers to appear in the late winter. Late frost
s can damage the flower buds, resulting in misshaped flowers.
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
of flowering plant
Flowering plant
The flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...
s in the family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
Theaceae
Theaceae
The Theaceae is a family of flowering plants, composed of shrubs and trees. Some botanists include the family Ternstroemiaceae within the Theaceae while others do not...
. They are found in eastern and southern Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, from the Himalaya east to Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
and Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
. There are 100–250 described species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
, with some controversy over the exact number. The genus was named by Linnaeus
Carolus Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus , also known after his ennoblement as , was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology...
after the Jesuit botanist Georg Joseph Kamel
Georg Joseph Kamel
Georg Joseph Kamel , also known as Camellus, was a Jesuit missionary and botanist to the Philippines. The genus Camellia was named in his honour by Carolus Linnaeus....
from Brno
Brno
Brno by population and area is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, the largest Moravian city, and the historical capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Brno is the administrative centre of the South Moravian Region where it forms a separate district Brno-City District...
, who worked in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, though he never described a camellia. This genus is famous throughout East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
; camellias are known as cháhuā (茶花) in Chinese, "flowering tea", an apt designation, as tsubaki (椿) in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, as dongbaek-kkot (동백꽃) in Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
and as hoa trà or hoa chè in Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
.
The most famous member – though often not recognized as a camellia – is certainly the tea plant (C. sinensis). Among the ornamental species, the Japanese Camellia (C. japonica) (which despite its name is also found in Korea and Eastern China) and C. sasanqua are perhaps the most widely known, though most camellias grown for their flowers are cultivar
Cultivar
A cultivar'Cultivar has two meanings as explained under Formal definition. When used in reference to a taxon, the word does not apply to an individual plant but to all those plants sharing the unique characteristics that define the cultivar. is a plant or group of plants selected for desirable...
s or hybrids.
Description
Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...
and small tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
s up to 20 meters tall. Their leaves are alternately arranged, simple, thick, serrated, and usually glossy.Their flowers are usually large and conspicuous, one to 12 cm in diameter, with five to nine petals in naturally occurring species of camellias. The colors of the flowers vary from white through pink colors to red; truly yellow flowers are found only in South China and North Vietnam. The so-called "fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
" of camellia plants is a dry capsule
Capsule (fruit)
In botany a capsule is a type of simple, dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. A capsule is a structure composed of two or more carpels that in most cases is dehiscent, i.e. at maturity, it splits apart to release the seeds within. A few capsules are indehiscent, for example...
, sometimes subdivided in up to five compartments, each compartment containing up to eight seed
Seed
A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...
s.
The various species of camellia plants are generally well-adapted to acid
Acid
An acid is a substance which reacts with a base. Commonly, acids can be identified as tasting sour, reacting with metals such as calcium, and bases like sodium carbonate. Aqueous acids have a pH of less than 7, where an acid of lower pH is typically stronger, and turn blue litmus paper red...
ic soils rich in humus, and most species do not grow well on chalk
Chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....
y soil or other calcium
Calcium
Calcium is the chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. It has an atomic mass of 40.078 amu. Calcium is a soft gray alkaline earth metal, and is the fifth-most-abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust...
-rich soils. Most species of camellias also require a large amount of water, either from natural rainfall or from irrigation
Irrigation
Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...
, and the plants will not tolerate drought
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
s. However, some of the more unusual camellias – typically species from karst
KARST
Kilometer-square Area Radio Synthesis Telescope is a Chinese telescope project to which FAST is a forerunner. KARST is a set of large spherical reflectors on karst landforms, which are bowlshaped limestone sinkholes named after the Kras region in Slovenia and Northern Italy. It will consist of...
soils in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
can grow without too much water.
Camellia plants usually have a rapid growth rate. Typically they will grow about 30 cm per year until mature – though this does vary depending on their variety and geographical location.
Camellia plants are used as food plants by the larva
Larva
A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...
e of a number of Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera is a large order of insects that includes moths and butterflies . It is one of the most widespread and widely recognizable insect orders in the world, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies...
species; see List of Lepidoptera that feed on Camellia. Leaves of the Japanese Camellia (C. japonica) are suceptable to the fungal
Fungus
A fungus is a member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds , as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from plants, animals, and bacteria...
parasite Mycelia sterile (see below for the significance).
Use by humans
Camellia sinensis
Camellia sinensis is the species of plant whose leaves and leaf buds are used to produce Chinese tea. It is of the genus Camellia , a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. White tea, green tea, oolong, pu-erh tea and black tea are all harvested from this species, but are processed...
, the tea plant, is of major commercial importance because tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
is made from its leaves. While the finest teas are produced by C. sinensis courtesy of millennia of selective breeding
Selective breeding
Selective breeding is the process of breeding plants and animals for particular genetic traits. Typically, strains that are selectively bred are domesticated, and the breeding is sometimes done by a professional breeder. Bred animals are known as breeds, while bred plants are known as varieties,...
of this species, many other camellias can be used to produce a similar beverage. For example, in some parts of Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, tea made from Christmas Camellia (C. sasanqua) leaves is popular.
Tea oil
Tea oil
Tea seed oil is an edible, pale amber-green fixed oil with a sweet, herbal aroma. It is cold-pressed mainly from the seeds of Camellia oleifera but also from Camellia sinensis or Camellia japonica....
is a sweet seasoning and cooking oil made by pressing the seeds of the Oil-seed Camellia (C. oleifera), the Japanese Camellia (C. japonica), and to a lesser extent other species such as Crapnell's Camellia
Crapnell's Camellia
Camellia crapnelliana, Crapnell's Camellia , is a flowering Camellia native to Hong Kong.In 1903, the Camellia crapnelliana species was first collected and described by W. J...
(C. crapnelliana), C. reticulata
Camellia reticulata
Camellia reticulata is a species of Camellia native to southwestern China, in Yunnan Province. The wild populations are restricted to mixed mountain forest in western and central Yunnan....
, C. sasanqua and C. sinensis. Relatively little-known outside East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
, it is the most important cooking oil
Cooking oil
Cooking oil is purified fat of plant origin, which is usually liquid at room temperature ....
for hundreds of millions of people, particularly in southern China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
.
Ecology
The camellia parasite Mycelia sterile produces a metaboliteMetabolite
Metabolites are the intermediates and products of metabolism. The term metabolite is usually restricted to small molecules. A primary metabolite is directly involved in normal growth, development, and reproduction. Alcohol is an example of a primary metabolite produced in large-scale by industrial...
named PF1022A. This is used to produce emodepside
Emodepside
Emodepside is an anthelmintic drug that is effective against a number of gastrointestinal nematodes, is licensed for use in cats and belongs to the class of drugs known as the octadepsipeptides, a relatively new class of anthelmintic , which are suspected to achieve their anti-parasitic effect by a...
, an anthelmintic
Anthelmintic
Anthelmintics or antihelminthics are drugs that expel parasitic worms from the body, by either stunning or killing them. They may also be called vermifuges or vermicides .-Pharmaceutical classes:...
drug
Drug
A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function. There is no single, precise definition, as there are different meanings in drug control law, government regulations, medicine, and colloquial usage.In pharmacology, a...
.
Mainly due to habitat destruction
Habitat destruction
Habitat destruction is the process in which natural habitat is rendered functionally unable to support the species present. In this process, the organisms that previously used the site are displaced or destroyed, reducing biodiversity. Habitat destruction by human activity mainly for the purpose of...
, several camellias have become quite rare in their natural range. One of these is the aforementioned C. reticulata, grown commercially in thousands for horticulture and oil production, but rare enough in its natural range to be considered a threatened species
Threatened species
Threatened species are any speciesg animals, plants, fungi, etc.) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future.The World Conservation Union is the foremost authority on threatened species, and treats threatened species not as a single category, but as a group of three categories,...
.
Garden history
Camellias were cultivated in the gardens of China and Japan for centuries before they were seen in Europe. The German botanist Engelbert KaempferEngelbert Kaempfer
Engelbert Kaempfer , a German naturalist and physician is known for his tour of Russia, Persia, India, South-East Asia, and Japan between 1683 and 1693. He wrote two books about his travels...
reported that the "Japan Rose", as he called it grew wild in woodland and hedgerow, but that many superior varieties had been selected for gardens. He was told that the plant had 900 names in Japanese. Europeans' earliest views of camellias must have been their representations in Chinese painted wallpapers, where they were often represented growing in porcelain pots.
The first living camellias seen in England were a single red and a single white, grown and flowered in his garden at Thorndon Hall
Thorndon Hall
Thorndon Hall is a Georgian Palladian country house within Thorndon Park, Ingrave, Essex, England, approximately two miles south of Brentwood and from central London....
, Essex, by Robert James, Lord Petre, among the keenest gardeners of his generation, in 1739. His gardener James Gordon was the first to introduce camellias to commerce, from the nurseries he established after Lord Petre's untimely death in 1743, at Mile End
Mile End
Mile End is an area within the East End of London, England, and part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is located east-northeast of Charing Cross...
, Essex, near London.
With the expansion of the tea trade
British tea culture
Since the 18th century the British have been the largest per capita tea consumers in the world, with each person consuming on average 2.5 kg per year. The popularity of tea occasioned the furtive export of slips to tea plants from China to British India and its commercial culture there,...
in the later 18th century, new varieties began to be seen in England, imported through the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
. The Company's John Slater was responsible for the first of the new camellias, double ones, in white and a striped red, imported in 1792. Further camellias imported in the East Indiamen were associated with the patrons whose gardeners grew them: a double red for Sir Robert Preston in 1794 and the pale pink named "Lady Hume's Blush" for Amelia, the lady of Sir Abraham Hume
Sir Abraham Hume
Sir Abraham Hume, 2nd Baronet was a British floriculturist and Tory politician.He was born in London on February 29, 1749...
of Wormleybury
Wormleybury
Wormleybury is a landscape park of 57ha and house near Wormley in Hertfordshire, England.The house, "Wormleybury Manor", was built by Robert Mylne in 1767-69, and embellished by Robert Adam in 1777-79.In 1825 the parish records from the Parish Church of St...
, Hertfordshire (1806). By 1819, twenty-five camellias had bloomed in England; that year the first monograph appeared, Samuel Curtis's, A Monograph on the Genus Camellia, whose five handsome folio colored illustrations have usually been removed from the slender text and framed. Camellias that set seed, though they did not flower for more than a decade, rewarded their growers with a wealth of new varieties. By the 1840s, the camellia was at the height of its fashion as the luxury flower. The Parisian courtesan Marie Duplessis
Marie Duplessis
Marie Duplessis was a French courtesan and mistress to a number of prominent and wealthy men. She was the inspiration for Marguerite Gautier, the main character of La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas the younger, one of Duplessis' lovers...
, who died young in 1847 inspired Dumas' La Dame aux camélias
The Lady of the Camellias
The Lady of the Camellias is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils, first published in 1848, and subsequently adapted for the stage. The Lady of the Camellias premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France on February 2, 1852. The play was an instant success, and Giuseppe Verdi immediately set...
and Verdi's La Traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
.
The fashionable imbricated formality of prized camellias was an element in their decline, replaced by the new hothouse orchid. Their revival after World War I as woodland shrubs for mild climates has been paralleled by the rise in popularity of Camellia sasanqua
Camellia sasanqua
The Christmas Camellia is a species of Camellia native to the evergreen coastal forests of southern Japan in Shikoku, Kyūshū and many other minor islands as far south as Okinawa. It is usually found growing up to an altitude of 900 metres.It is an evergreen shrub growing to 5 m tall...
.
Today many other camellias are grown as ornamental plants for their flowers; about 3,000 cultivar
Cultivar
A cultivar'Cultivar has two meanings as explained under Formal definition. When used in reference to a taxon, the word does not apply to an individual plant but to all those plants sharing the unique characteristics that define the cultivar. is a plant or group of plants selected for desirable...
s and hybrids have been selected, many with double flower
Double Flower
Double Flower Football Association is a Hong Kong football club and plays in Hong Kong Second Division League. It was a very successful team in 1990s under the name Instant-Dict .-Events:...
s. The Japanese Camellia – often simply called "the camellia" – is the most prominent species in cultivation, with over 2,000 named cultivars. Next are C. reticulata with over 400 named cultivars, and the Christmas Camellia with over 300 named cultivars. Popular hybrids include Camellia × hiemalis|C. × hiemalis (C. japonica × C. sasanqua) and Camellia × williamsii|C. × williamsii (C. japonica × Camellia saluenensis|C. saluenensis). They are highly valued in Japan and elsewhere for their very early flowering, often among the first flowers to appear in the late winter. Late frost
Frost
Frost is the solid deposition of water vapor from saturated air. It is formed when solid surfaces are cooled to below the dew point of the adjacent air as well as below the freezing point of water. Frost crystals' size differ depending on time and water vapour available. Frost is also usually...
s can damage the flower buds, resulting in misshaped flowers.
Cultural significance
- Sacramento, CaliforniaSacramento, CaliforniaSacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
is nicknamed the Camellia City. - The Camellia is the state flower of AlabamaAlabamaAlabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
. - The Camellia BowlCamellia Bowl- 1948, Lafayette, Louisiana :The Camellia Bowl was a post-season major college football bowl game played at McNaspy Stadium in Lafayette, Louisiana, on December 30, 1948 between Hardin-Simmons University and the University of Wichita ....
was a post-season college football game under the auspices of the NCAA. - The Lady of the CamelliasThe Lady of the CamelliasThe Lady of the Camellias is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils, first published in 1848, and subsequently adapted for the stage. The Lady of the Camellias premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France on February 2, 1852. The play was an instant success, and Giuseppe Verdi immediately set...
is named for the Camellia. - Augusta National Golf ClubAugusta National Golf ClubAugusta National Golf Club, located in Augusta, Georgia, is a famous men's golf club. Founded by Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts and designed by Alister MacKenzie on the site of a former indigo plantation, the club opened for play in January 1933. Since 1934, it has played host to the annual...
's 10th hole is named Camellia. - Rabindranath TagoreRabindranath TagoreRabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
wrote a poem entitled "Camellia" about the camellia. - In the book To Kill a MockingbirdTo Kill a MockingbirdTo Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was instantly successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature...
, Jem destroys Mrs. Dubose's camellia bushes out of anger due to some insensitive comments she'd made about his family. Later on in the book, Jem is given a Camellia bud by the dying Mrs. Dubose. - Camellia buds are an iconic symbol for the ChanelChanelChanel S.A. is a French fashion house founded by the couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, well established in haute couture, specializing in luxury goods . She gained the name "Coco" while maintaining a career as a singer at a café in France...
fashion house's haute coutureHaute coutureHaute couture refers to the creation of exclusive custom-fitted clothing. Haute couture is made to order for a specific customer, and it is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable seamstresses,...
; a tradition started by Coco ChanelCoco ChanelGabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was a pioneering French fashion designer whose modernist thought, menswear-inspired fashions, and pursuit of expensive simplicity made her an important figure in 20th-century fashion. She was the founder of one of the most famous fashion brands, Chanel...
herself.
Selected species