Camellia sasangua Thunb. (1784) sec. Oleifera: distributed in nature in the Japanese archipelago, it has a long history of cultivation in its beautiful varieties. It blooms in autumn and winter, when there are not showyflowering shrubs.

Camellia lutchuenis Ito (1900) sec. Theopsis: it is well known for its sweet fragrance, which through crossings with C. Japonica and other species, was transferred to the hybrids. Thus, donating a perfume that is not present in many other species, including C. Japonica.

Camellia saluenesis Stapf ex Bean (1933) sec. Camellia: it grows in nature at variable altitudes (from 1,000 to 3,000 mt) in the Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan. The plant is extremely important because it created, using crossing procedures with the C. Japonica, the C.x williamsii group and its correlated hybrids. The x williamsii group is rustic and adaptable, it also blooms in abundance, a characteristic that has provided the name of “Lanscaping camellia”.

Camellia nitidissima Chi (1948) sec. Chrysantha: the flowers are golden yellow. It is less rustic compared to the aforementioned plants due to its natural habitat being the subtropical forests. Its major trademark is its colour yellow, absent in the classic garden varieties.

Camellia changii Ye (1985) sec. Camellia: the flowers are bright red, large, simple. The foliage provides a resemblance to a rhododendron more so than a camelia. For this reason, it boasts the name of Camellia azalea. However, its most peculiar characteristic is the fact that in its native place the plant blooms throughout the year, so the great interest for this species relies in its continuous reflowering, which is a characteristic that lacks in most of the other camelias.

Camelia amplexicaulis Coh.St. (1916) sec. Archeocamellia: specimens are often found close to religious temples, a sign that the plant has been cultivated for centuries with an ornamental function. It possesses a limited rusticity, but experiments have highlighted that the plant can tolerate some degrees below zero. It grows in deep shadows, so it could be used as an indoor plant. Its luxurious vegetation, with big emerald, green leaves, and new often coloured buds. The flowers can be strong pink or white and the bud is already coloured since its birth.

The most representative species in this group is undoubtedly C. sasanqua Thumb. (1784). It is part of the Oleifera Chang section (1981) and is native to Japan, to be precise in the south of Shikoku, Kyushu and the islands south of Kyushu. In nature it has the shape of a bush or small tree with simple white flowers with 7-8 petals and variably elliptical leaves, from sharp to occasionally cuspidate. The flowering period is from autumn to early winter.

C.x vernalis, on the other hand, is an interspecific hybrid between C.sasanqua and C.japonica and the varieties with the same origin but with characters more similar to C.japonica are known as C. hiemalis.

Camellia japonica subsp.rusticana (Honda) Kitamura (1950) is a subspecies of C. japonica which occurs naturally in highly snowy areas in the north west of the island of Honshu in Japan, from 100 to 1000 meters above sea level. By itself it has spring flowering but has entered the genetic heritage of several autumn-winter flowering varieties in order to give the hybrids a marked resistance to low temperatures and a more composed and sometimes prostrate shape, making them suitable for cultivation in pots, such as bonsai or in small gardens.

A colour missing in classic garden camelias is yellow. In nature, the Camelia Japonica and other known species of the time do not have the genetic characteristic of possessing yellow in its own shades of colour. Until thirty years ago, it was an inconceivable feature.

Thanks to the opening of China and Vietnam, scientists have discovered a multitude of tropical and subtropical species in the forests located in the southwest of Guangxi, in the south-east of Yunnan and in the south-west of Guizhou province, beyond the contiguous areas of Northern Vietnam.

At the moment, about 80 between species and natural varieties have been classified, but the works is still continually updated, included in the section Chrysantha-Chang (1981) or by following Professor Ming Tielu’s updates present in the Archeocamellia -Sealy (1958) section.

“Only you, without the smell of glacial beauty, marmoreal, precious, and the preferred type by the daughters of luxury, dull Camelia. And I almost exclude you from the family of flowers. When I’ll die, on the lamented casket, dear Sister, compose a garland of the most neglected flowers. The most gentile are those and the most scented. I hate these wreaths that the theatres remember, and the hot atmosphere of the balls where it loses its leaves. And under the inebriated feet we stomp on bland hills camelias, modesty wins”.

E. Nencioni, “Hymn to Flowers” 1870

This is what the Italian poet Enrico Nencioni wrote in his Hymn to Flowers from 1870. It is well known, the sense of smell has lost its sensibility in humanity. Nevertheless, it is without a doubt that to perceive, appreciate, and remember scents that awaken ancestral memories has a great importance for people. The lack of fragrance represents a limit for the Camelia Japonica and, in order to remedy that, hybridisers all around the world have tried to obtain camelias with a scent. The solution was found through crossings, utilising species of camelias that naturally possess a fragrance. Therefore, it is a question of matching the genetic heritage of the following plants: di C. lutchuensis, C.transnokoensis, C.synaptica, C.tsaii, C.yushienensis (syn. C.odorata). The sweet and spiced perfumes that can be perceived remind of cinnamon, tea, honeysuckle, and carnations.

It must be remembered that the moment of the day, the quality of the soil in which the plant lies and the climate play a key role in the production and diffusion of the scent.

This collection groups unusually dark shades, from dark red to violet and even sombre shades. These colours are a major characteristic of these rare varieties, among them: the “Black Magic” and “Jinhua Meinü” synonym of “Red Leaf Bella”.

“Black Magic” obtained by the Nuccio brothers of Altadena, in California, has red flowers which are very dark, waxy consistency, irregular or rose shaped. The foliage is crisp and indented and provide the plant with a loo that reminds of holly.

“Jinhua Meinü” is a stable bud mutation of the “Nuccio’s Bella Rossa”, isolated by Fu Bingzhong in the Chinese town of Jinhua, in the province of Zhejiang and subsequently resold to an American collector for a high price. The big, red, double flowers often with an imbrication of the petals in the shape of a star. They possess showy black veins and the new leaves are bright red.

A tour around the world and history in 40 specimens between varieties and species. This section will be dedicated to a collection of beautiful camelias with different peculiarities, from the shape of the flowers to the variegation of the leaves, and the profusion with which they grow.

Virgin of Collebeato, for example, it is a famous camelia for its seven arms of petals that form a concentric heptameron (although this phenomenon does not always occur), C.F. Coates a Camellia x williamsii with particular leaves that resemble the tail of a fish, C. Japonica subsp. rusticana “Reigyoku”, a variety with a lush golden foliage, and last but not least the “Reigyoku” has incarnadine flowers, imported from China in 1806 by Lady Amelia Hume of Wormleybury,

England. This may have been the first double camelia seen in Europe, together with “Alba Plena”.

Camellia Japonica (L.): It was imported in Europe, in England to be precise, slightly before 1747, the year in which the first iconography of vegetable plants in greenhouses by Lord Petre. In a few years this plant had a vast diffusion in all the continent, unleashing a trend comparable to the one of the tulips in the 1500s and 1600s. Part of its popularity is thanks to the enormous success of Alexandre Dumas fils’ novel The Lady of the Camelias. In Italy the first plant to be introduced in a garden was the “Celebratissima”, it was placed in the park of the Royal Palace of Caserta around the year 1760, and from that moment the passion for this plant spread throughout the country in only a couple of years, including mostly various lovers of the upper class, and its simplicity in hybridisation and spontaneous mutation pushed for a search of new varieties.

Therefore, in the XVIIIth century a man without a camelia in his pocket or a woman without an ornament reproducing the flower on her dress were not considered fashionable.

The longevity of the camellia allowed to perpetuate its glorious varieties from the 1800s to our time, but, due to negligence, disinterest or a merely economic interest, these varieties risked being extinct.

The XXIst century produced a rediscovery of the past, in fact, Flora Toscana reproposes to the world the old camelias, those obtained from nurserymen such as Franchetti and Mercatelli, Professor Santarelli, Marquese Ridolfi, Count Bouturlin, Sir Bonafedi. All these distinguished Florentines managed, by using various processes of hybridisation, to create many beautiful varieties dedicated to famous celebrities, friends, relatives (such as Marie Antoinette, the Archduke Carlo, Dionisia Poniatowski etc.).

Moved by a sentiment of valorisation of this heritage, Flora Toscana now proudly sells these camelias.