Camellia grijsii

Yuri Panchul — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 03:25:20 +0000

This month The International Camellia Society put two of my camellia photo pictures to the front page of their website. One is a picture of Camellia japonica ‘Kamo Honnami’ (see their website), and another is a picture of Camellia grijsii, a species related to C. sasanqua:

C. grijsii

Camellia grijsii (长瓣短柱茶 in Chinese) Hance (1879) is a wild species of section Paracamellia. It is related to C. sasanqua, C. oleifera and C. kissii. It was collected in 1861 in Fujian by C.F.M. de Grijs. It is distributed in China (Fujian, Hubei, Sichuan, Guangxi) and used for a high-quality oil production. C. grijsii is closely related to another species – C. yuhsienensis, that is a parent of a popular cultivar ‘Yume’.

I got my two plants of C. grijsii from Nuccio’s Nurseries. The first one (shown above) has single white flowers and the second one is a double-flowered Chinese cultivar called ‘Zhenzhucha’:

Camellia grijsii ‘Zhenzhucha’

Camellia grijsii has great hybridizing potential. Two plants in my garden have small leaves with impressed veins and very columnar shape. I believe there are also varieties with larger leaves, but I am specifically interested in small-leaved cultivars.

Another great feature of C. grijsii is its cluster-flowering habit. However in my garden C. grijsii flowers from January to March, so it will be a challenge to cross it with Fall-flowering sasanquas. Probably I will have to store some pollen from sasanquas in refrigerator for a couple of months.

Another problem is chromosome number. According to Kondo and his associates it has a variety of chromosome numbers 2n = 30, 60, 75 and 90 (see the reference in Collected Species of the Genus Camellia, an Illustrated Outline by Gao Jiyin, Clifford R. Parks and Du Yuequiang).

C. grijsii

Camellia grijsii ‘Zhenzhucha’

Chinese names for species

Yuri Panchul — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:21:20 +0000

Here is Chinese names of Camellia species from sections Oleifera and Paracamellia. Recent genetic research suggest that these sections should be grouped back together to the original Sealy’s section Paracamellia.

Sect. Oleifera H. T. Chang (油茶组)

C. gauchowensis H. T. Chang (高州油茶)
C. oleifera Abel (油茶)
C. vietnamensis T. C. Huang ex Hu (越南油茶)
C. sasanqua Thunb. (茶梅)
C. lanceoleosa H. T. Chang & J. S. Chiu (狭叶油茶)

Sect. Paracamellia Sealy (短柱茶组)

C. fluviatilis Hand.-Mazz. (窄叶短柱茶)
C. grijsii Hance (长瓣短柱茶)
C. yuhsienensis Hu (攸县油茶)
C. odorata L. S. Xie & Z. Y. Zhang (芳香短柱茶)
C. shensiensis H. T. Chang (陕西短柱茶)
C. confusa Craib (小果短柱茶)
C. kissi Wall. (落瓣短柱茶)
C. tenii Sealy (大姚短柱茶)
C. hiemalis Nakai (冬红短柱茶)
C. miyagii (Koidz.) Makino & Nemoto (琉球短柱茶)
C. brevistyla (Hayata) Coh. Stuart (短柱茶)
C. obtusifolia H. T. Chang (钝叶短柱茶)
C. puniceiflora H. T. Chang (粉红短柱茶)
C. microphylla (Merr.) Chien (细叶短柱茶)
C. maliflora Lindl. (樱花短柱茶)
C. phaeoclada H. T. Chang (褐枝短柱茶)

Sources:

Gao J-Y (高继银), Parks CR, Du Y-Q (杜跃强). 2005. Collected species of the genus Camellia an illustrated outline (山茶属植物主要原种彩色图集). Hangzhou: Zhejiang Science and Technology Press.

Lin X-Y (林秀艳), Peng Q-F (彭秋发), Lü H-F (吕洪飞), Du Y-Q (杜跃强), Tang B-Y (汤妣颖). 2008. Leaf anatomy of Camellia sect. Oleifera and sect. Paracamellia (Theaceae) with reference to their taxonomic significance. Journal of Systematics and Evolution (植物分类学报) 46:183–193. http://www.plantsystematics.com

Shen Jin-Bo, Lü H-F (吕洪飞), Peng Q-F (彭秋发), Zheng Ju-Fang, Tian Yu-Mei. 2008. FTIR spectra of Camellia sect. Oleifera, sect. Paracamellia, and sect. Camellia (Theaceae) with reference to their taxonomic significance. Journal of Systematics and Evolution 46 (2): 194–204. http://www.plantsystematics.com

Sazanka » 长瓣短柱茶

Camellia grijsii

Chinese names for species