I think I was the most exited this Friday about this Camellia grijsii, native to China. It is just after the tunnel, can be seen from upper Asian way. I wasn't sure if this is the right name, when I search the Internet for images, it gave me all images with pure white flowers. What I found most interesting about this plant. Camellia grijsii is very fragrant. Camellia grijsii blooms in winter to early spring Camellia grijsii named in honor of de Grijs, C. F. M. (1832-1902), a Dutch military surgeon and interpreter in China, in 1858-1862 he collected the Chinese flora. Camellia grijsii is native to s e China where it grows in evergreen, broadleaved woodland between 100m and 1500m Camellia grijsii may have pink, red, white flowers http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~gdk/stabg_new/poms/2010/jan10pom.htm
There are two accessions of Camellia grijsii in the Garden. All the descriptions I find of the species list white flowers. Our other accession has white flowers. This accession was received from another botanic garden as a plant with wild collected origin of Guangxi, China. I do not know if seed or plants were collected or if a vegetative propagation of the originally collected plant(s) was sent. At any rate, when I look up the accession from the botanic garden which was our source, they display a white flowered plant on their website. So either a mixup occurred or we have a very rare plant. ( I am guessing the former.) I am going to send a note to our source to see if I can find what type of material was sent to us.
Nadia had trouble reading her tag photo and asked me about it because she had only found white flower photos. I found this to reassure her: But if it's supposed to have been collected wild, it shouldn't be a cultivar.
We received a thorough reply from the source of our plant, but we still can't resolve the identity of the Camellia. The plant will need some more evaluation.
If there is a possibility the original specimen was grafted the plant shown looks like the kind of low quality open-pollinated seedling that would often be grown only for use as a stock.
