2/8 AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 



It becomes a mere bush such as we find it in our plant-houses. 

 Choshi-no-kuchi on the Pacific coast and at the mouth of the Tone- 

 gawa, near the 36th parallel, is the northern limit of Yama-tsubaki. 

 Still I have found it in Western Hondo near the Japan Sea, a 

 little lower than the 38th parallel, and in the hill forests of 

 Northern Echigo, where it forms an under-brush about a meter in 

 height.^ 



The camellia, cultivated for its oil or for ornamental purposes, 

 appears as an out-of-door plant around Hakodate, in Northern 

 Hondo, generally in tree form with single red flowers like the wild 

 varieties, or it is a bush in a number of species, part of which have 

 single and part double flowers, but not in such a large number 

 of varieties as our hothouses show. 



Since very ancient times the camellia has been prized and culti- 

 vated in China as a decorative plant. It is not known when and 

 from what point it was brought to the island of Luzon. The 

 Moravian Jesuit, George J. Kamel (Camellus), who visited Manila 

 in the 17th century, and later published a " Historia Stirpium 

 Insulae Luzonis," first mentioned the plant in this book. It was in 

 1737 named in his honour by Linnaeus in his work "Genera plan- 

 tarum." The earliest picture of the camellia appeared in 1702 in 

 Petiver's " Gasophylacium." ^ 



In 1739 the camellia was transplanted from Manila to the 

 Jardin del Buen Retiro at Madrid. At that time, however, the 

 single red-blossomed variety had already been introduced in Eng- 

 land by Robert James Lord Petre, and was known as the Japanese 

 rose. 



Lagerstrom, director of the Swedish East India Company, brought 

 the first two varieties to Upsala in 1745, but still Tsubaki was a 

 rarity in Europe up to one hundred years ago. Most of the 

 numerous varieties have been brought from China and Japan 

 during this present century, or gradually formed by our nursery- 

 men. 



In the cold houses and forcing houses of the temperate and 

 colder countries of Europe, where the conditions of its growth 

 are well understood and followed, the number of varieties of the 

 camellia is much greater, as has been said before, than in Eastern 

 Asia.^ 



^ It may perhaps interest some readers acquainted with Japan, to learn more 

 about this growth. It is on the way from Gatsuke on the Japan Sea, to Naka- 

 mura, lying inland 2 ri. 25 cho. The environs are distinguished by a large 

 number of lacquer-tree plantations. The numerous camellia bushes, many of 

 which had beautifully formed buds in the early part of November, with their 

 dark-green leaves, contrast well against the bare trees and bushes which are 

 scattered among them. 



2 See Seemann ; " Synopsis of the Genera Camellia and Thea." Transact. 

 Linn. Society, xxii. p. 342. 



^ Such camellia bloom as the Palm garden at Frankfort, for instance, offers 

 its visitors in spring, cannot be found in Japan. 



