Camellia japonica, known as common camellia, or Japanese camellia, is a species of flowering plant from the genus Camellia in the tea family Theaceae. It is native to China and Japan, and grows naturally in forests at altitudes of around .
There are thousands of cultivars of C. japonica, with many colors and forms of flowers, mainly as garden ornamental plants. The floriculture of Camellia japonica started in China. Its widespread cultivation can be traced back to the Song Dynasty, when 15 varieties of Camellia japonica were recorded in literature.
Description
Camellia japonica is a flowering tree or shrub, usually tall, but occasionally up to tall. Some cultivated varieties achieve a size of 72 m2 or more. The youngest branches are purplish brown, becoming grayish brown as they age.
Leaves The alternately arranged leathery leaves are dark green on the top side, paler on the underside, usually long by wide with a stalk (petiole) about long. The base of the leaf is pointed (cuneate), the margins are very finely toothed (serrulate) and the tip somewhat pointed. The leaves are rich in anti-inflammatory terpenoids such as lupeol and squalene.
Flower In the wild, flowering is between January and March. The flowers appear along the branches, particularly towards the ends, and have very short stems. They occur either alone or in pairs, and are across.
There are about nine greenish bracteoles and sepals. Flowers of the wild species have six or seven rose or white petals, each long by wide; the innermost petals are joined at the base for up to a third of their length. (Cultivated forms often have more petals.) The numerous stamens are long, the outer whorl being joined at the base for up to . The three-lobed style is about long.
The Japanese white eye bird (Zosterops japonicus) pollinates Camellia japonica. C. japonica flowers are important resources for flower-feeding insects and are visited by a number of insects, most of which are not pollinators but consumers. Dasiops sp. (Diptera) exploit flower buds. Drosophila unipectinata, D. oshimai, and D. lutescens (Diptera) and Epuraea commutata (Coleoptera) exploit fully opened, late, and fallen flowers.
Fruit The fruit consists of a globe-shaped capsule with three compartments (locules), each with one or two large brown seeds with a diameter of . Fruiting occurs in September to October in the wild.
Taxonomy The genus Camellia was named after a Jesuit priest and botanist named Georg Kamel. The specific epithet japonica was given to the species by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. Despite its common name, Camellia japonica is indigenous to China. Camellia japonica has been growing wild since prehistoric times in the Kantō region of western Japan, southern Korea, Taiwan, Zhejiang and Jiangsu. In the Song Dynasty, 15 varieties of it were recorded in literature. The reason Camellia japonica got its name was that Engelbert Kaempfer was one of the first Europeans to give a description of the plant when he first saw it in Japan.
Two varieties are distinguished in the Flora of China: C. japonica var. japonica and C. japonica var. rusticana
Camellia japonica var. japonica
C. japonica var. japonica is the form named by Linnaeus, and naturally occurs in forests at altitudes of in Shandong, eastern Zhejiang in mainland China and in Taiwan, south Japan, and South Korea. The leaf has a glabrous stem (petiole) about long. The bracteoles and sepals are velutinous (velvety). It flowers between January and March, and fruits in between September and October. It is grown as a garden plant in the form of many cultivars throughout the world.
Camellia japonica var. rusticana
Camellia japonica var. rusticana naturally occurs in forests in China.Camellia japonica var. rusticana (Honda) T.L.Ming in GBIF Secretariat (2023). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omeiaccessed via GBIF.org on 2026-01-07. The leaf has a shorter petiole, about long, with fine hairs (pubescent) at the base. The bracteoles and sepals are smooth (glabrous) on the outside. The color of the flowers ranges from red through rose to pink, flowering in April to May. This variety is regarded by some botanical authorities to be a separate species: Camellia rusticana.
In Japan it is known by the common name "yuki-tsubaki" (snow camellia) as it naturally occurs in areas of heavy snowfall at altitudes ranging from down to on sloping land under deciduous beech trees in the mountain regions to the north of the main island of Honshu and facing the Sea of Japan. In December heavy drifts of snow come in from the north, covering the plants to a depth of up to . The bushes remain covered by snow from December till the end of March when the snow melts in early Spring and the camellias start flowering.
Cultivars of C. japonica var. rusticana include: 'Nishiki-kirin', 'Nishiki-no-mine', 'Toyo-no-hikari' and 'Otome'.
History
China
Camellia japonica has appeared in paintings and porcelain in China since the 11th century. Early paintings of the plant are usually of the single red flowering type. However, a single white flowering plant is shown in the scroll of the Four Magpies of the Song Dynasty.Valder, Peter. The Garden Plants of China. Oregon: Timber Press, 1999.
Australia
The first records of camellias in Australia pertain to a consignment to Alexander Macleay of Sydney that arrived in 1826 and were planted in Sydney at Elizabeth Bay House.
In 1838 six C. japonica plants were imported by the botanist, horticulturist and agriculturist William Macarthur. During the years that followed he brought in several hundred varieties and grew them at Camden Park Estate. For many years Macarthur's nursery was one of the main sources of supply to the colony in Australia of ornamental plants, as well as fruit trees and vines.
In 1845, William Macarthur wrote to the London nurseryman Conrad Loddiges, acknowledging receipt of camellias and mentioning: "I have raised four or five hundred seedlings of camellia, chiefly from seeds produced by 'Anemoniflora'. As this variety never has anthers of its own, I fertilised its blossoms with pollen of C. reticulata and Sp. maliflora." Although most of Macarthur's seedling varieties have been lost to cultivation, some are still popular today, including 'Aspasia Macarthur' (named after him).
A well-known camellia nursery in Sydney was "Camellia Grove", set up in 1852 by Silas Sheather who leased land adjoining the Parramatta River on what was originally part of Elizabeth Farm. Fuller's Sydney Handbook of 1877 describes his nursery as having 59 varieties of camellias. Camellia and other flowers from Sheather's nursery were sent by steamship downriver to florists at Sydney Markets, tied in bunches and suspended from long pieces of wood which were hung up about the decks. Silas Sheather developed a number of camellia cultivars, the most popular (and still commercially grown) were C. japonica 'Prince Frederick William' and C. japonica 'Harriet Beecher Sheather', named after his daughter. The area in the vicinity of Sheather's nursery was eventually made a suburb and named Camellia, in honor of Camellia Grove nursery.
By 1883, Shepherd and Company, the leading nurserymen in Australia at the time, listed 160 varieties of Camellia japonica.
Associate Professor Eben Gowrie Waterhouse was a scholar, linguist, garden designer and camellia expert who brought about a worldwide revival of interest in the genus in the first half of the twentieth century. The E.G. Waterhouse National Camellia Garden in Sydney, Australia is named after him.
Europe According to a research conducted in 1959, by Dr. Frederick Meyer, of the United States Department of Agriculture, the camellias of Campo Bello (Portugal) are the oldest known specimens in Europe, which would have been planted around 1550, that is to say, these trees are nowadays approximately 460 years old.Jorge Garrido: "Portuguese Camellias, History&Beauty" Agro-Manual Publicaçoes, Lda, February 2014. Page: 1 However it is said that the camellia was first brought to the West in 1692 by Engelbert Kaempfer, Chief Surgeon to the Dutch East India Company. He brought details of over 30 varieties back from Asia. Camellias were introduced into Europe during the 18th century and had already been cultivated in the Orient for thousands of years. Robert James of Essex, England, is thought to have brought back the first live camellia to England in 1739. On his return from Dejima, Carl Peter Thunberg made a short trip to London where he made the acquaintance of Sir Joseph Banks. Thunberg donated to Kew Botanic Gardens four specimens of Camellia japonica. One of these was supposedly given in 1780 to the botanical garden of Pillnitz Castle near Dresden in Germany where it currently measures in height and in diameter.
The oldest trees of Camellia japonica in Europe can be found in Campobello (Portugal), Caserta (Italy) and Pillnitz (Germany).P. Vela, J. L. Couselo, C. Salinero, M. González, M. J. Sainz: "Morpho-botanic and molecular characterization of the oldest camellia trees in Europe". In: International Camellia Journal, No. 41, 2009, pp. 51-57 These were probably planted at the end of the 16th century.
United States
In the U.S., camellias were first sold in 1807 as greenhouse plants, but were soon distributed to be grown outdoors in the south.Cothran, James R. Gardens and historic plants of the antebellum South. South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press. 2003. pages 166-167.
In Charleston, South Carolina, the estate garden of Magnolia-on-the-Ashley introduced hundreds of new Camellia japonica cultivars from the 19th century onwards, and its recently restored collection has been designated an International Camellia Garden of Excellence. "Debutante", a popular variety, was originally introduced by Magnolia as "Sarah C. Hastie". The name was changed to give it more marketing appeal.
Cross-breeding of camellias has produced many cultivars which are tolerant of hardiness zone 6 winters. These camellia varieties can grow in the milder parts of the lower Midwest (St. Louis, for example), Pacific Northwest, NYC area (NYC/NJ/CT), and even Ontario, Canada (near edge of the Great Lakes).
It is the official state flower of the US state of Alabama.
Cultivars Camellia japonica is valued for its flowers, which can be single, semi-double or double flowered. There are more than 2,000 cultivars developed from C. japonica. The shade of the flowers can vary from red to pink to white; they sometimes have multi-coloured stripes or specks. Cultivars include 'Elegans' with large pink flowers which often have white streaks, 'Giulio Nuccio' with red to pinkish petals and yellow stamens, 'Mathotiana Alba' with pure white flowers, and the light crimson semi-double-flowered 'The Czar'.Nico Vermeulen. The Complete Encyclopedia of Container Plants, pp. 65-66. Rebo International, Netherlands, 1998.
C. japonica 'Alba Plena' is nicknamed the "Bourbon Camellia". Captain Connor of the East Indiaman , brought the flower to England in 1792.Booth, William B. History and Description of the Species of Camellia and Thea. Published by s.n., 1829. Original from Harvard University. Digitized Jun 4, 2007. The flowers are pure white and about 3 to 4 inches across. It blooms earlier than most cultivated camellias, in the early winter or spring, and can flower for 4 to 5 months.The Magazine of horticulture, botany, and all useful discoveries and improvements in rural affairs. Published by Hovey., 1836. v. 2. Original from Harvard University. Digitized May 11, 2007.