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Camellia

Genus of flowering plants in the tea family

  • 13 min read
  • 8 chapters
Camellia sasanqua
junichiro aoyama from Kyoto, Japan · CC BY 2.0

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The leaves of C. sinensis are processed to create tea, and so are of particular economic importance in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent, with the processed leaves widely sold and consumed globally. The ornamental C. japonica, C. sasanqua and their hybrids are the source of hundreds of garden cultivars. C. oleifera produces tea seed oil, used in cooking and cosmetics.

Description

Vegetative characteristics

Camellia are attractive, broad-leaved, evergreen, up to 10–15 m tall shrubs, small trees, or rarely large trees. The alternate, leathery leaves with serrate or rarely entire margins are petiolate or rarely sessile or amplexicaul.

Flowers and fruit

The axillary or subterminal, solitary or grouped, large, hermaphrodite, fragrant or inodorous flowers are pedicellate or subsessile. Their flowers are usually conspicuous, one to 12 cm (5 in) 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 Vietnam. Tea varieties are always white-flowered. Camellia flowers throughout the genus are characterized by a dense bouquet of conspicuous yellow stamens, often contrasting with the petal colors. Some research has shown that the colour of petals in some species' flowers indicate their size and how they are pollinated; species with red or yellow flowers are pollinated by sunbirds whereas species with white flowers are smaller in diameter and are pollinated by bees. The woody, 1-5-locular, globose or oblate, loculicidal capsule fruit with a persistent central axis bears semiglobose, globose, or polygonal, exalbuminous seeds.

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