Camellia Flower
Camellia, the camellias, is a genus of flowering plants in
the family Theaceae. They are found in eastern and southern Asia, from the
Himalayas east to Japan and Indonesia. There are 100–250 described species, with
some controversy over the exact number. The genus was named by Linnaeus after
the Jesuit botanist Georg Joseph Kamel, who worked in the Philippines, though he
never described a camellia. This genus is famous throughout East Asia; camellias
are known as cháhua in Chinese, "tea flower", an apt designation, as tsubaki in
Japanese, as dongbaek-kkot in Korean and as hoa trà or hoa chè in
Vietnamese.
The most famous member – though often not recognized as a
camellia – is certainly the tea plant (C. sinensis). Among the ornamental
species, Camellia japonica, Camellia oleifera and C. sasanqua are perhaps the
most widely known, though most camellias grown for their flowers are cultivars
or hybrids.
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