528 Description of the Species of Camellia and Thea. 



V. Camellia reticulata. Lindley. 

 Captain Rawes's Camellia. 



C. reticulata ; foliis oblongis acuminatis serrulatis reticularis planis, ramulis 

 petiolisque glabris, ovario sericeo. Lindley. 



The merit of first introducing this fine species is due to 

 Captain IIichard Rawes, who brought home a plant of it in 

 1820, for his friend Thomas Carey Palmer, Esq. along with 

 another great ornament of our gardens, the Primula sinensis. 



It is of a strong robust habit, and very distinct from any of the other spe- 

 cies of Camellia. The branches are round, smooth, and erect, sparingly furnished 

 with thick flat strongly reticulated dull green leaves, usually 3h inches long, and 

 \ \ inch broad, with a strong pale green midrib, and numerous small sharp serra- 

 tures. The footstalks are about a quarter*of an inch long, brownish green, and 

 a little channelled on the upper side. The flower buds are very large, of an oval 

 form, somewhat pointed, covered with 6 or more proportionably large, roundish, 

 very pubescent, pale green scales, the inner ones of them coloured at their edges 

 like the petals. The flowers are semi-double, particularly handsome, and mea- 

 sure Avhen fully expanded no less than b\ inches in diameter. They are of a clear 

 purplish red colour, and at first sight have much the appearance of the flowers of 

 the Pceonia Moutan rosea, but the petals are not so numerous, being usually 

 from 1 7 to 20 in number, much undulated, irregularly and loosely arranged ; 

 each of them is 2\ inches long, and rather more than an inch broad at the extre- 

 mity, sometimes divided, but generally entire, and strongly marked with dark 

 coloured veins. In the centre of the flower there are often a few petals very dif- 

 ferent in form, and rather paler than the others, which rise upright, and divide 

 the stamina into separate parcels ; they are for the most part narrow, deeply cut, 

 and not unfrequently a little striped at the base and twisted. The stamina are 

 about half the length of the petals, ranged in several rows, the inner ones rather 

 separate from the others. Styles united, excepting at the point, often four, but 

 most commonly three in number, and about the same length as the stamina. 

 Ovary roundish, silky, 4 celled, with several distichous ovules. 



In the Botanical Register, 1. 1078, an excellent figure will 

 be found of it, made from one of the plants imported for the 

 Society in 1824, by their Collector, Mr. John Damper 

 Parks. Another is published in the Botanical Magazine, 

 t. 2784, from the plant brought home by Captain Rawes, 

 which I saw in flower for the first time in the spring of 

 1826, and which I had an opportunity of then describing, 



