CAMELLIA JAPONICA- THE CAMELLIA JAPONICA. 
Class XYI. MONADELPHIA.— Order VI. POLYANDRIA. 
Natural Order. TERNSTROMIACE^E. 
Calyx imbricate, surrounded by accessory bracteas or sepals. Stamens monadelphous. Anthers elliptical 
2-celled, bursting lengthwise. Capsule furrowed, with a dissepiment in the middle of each valve, separating 
from the free triquetrous axis when ripe. Leaves ovate, acuminate, acutely serrated; flowers axillary, 
sessile, usually solitary ; ovary smooth. This plant, in its native country, grows to a large tree. It is in 
high esteem among the Japanese and Chinese -for the elegance of its large flowers, which exhibit a great 
variety of colours, but have no scent, and for its evergreen leaves. It is very common everywhere in the 
groves and gardens, flowering from October to April. It varies with white, red, yellowish, purple flowers, 
and variegated and blotched with the same colours, from single to semidouble and double. It is the greatest 
ornament of the greenhouses of Europe in spring, and is now cultivated by nurserymen to a vast extent. 
The plant was cultivated in England before 1742, by Robert James, Lord Petre. 
Cult. All the species of Camellia are universally admired by every collector of plants, on account of 
their beautiful rose-like flowers, and elegant, dark-green, shining, laurel-like leaves. They are very hardy 
green-house plants, and are easy of culture, requiring only to be sheltered from severe frost. The best soil 
for them is an equal quantity of good sandy loam and peat. Messrs. Loddiges find that light loam alone 
answers as well or better, and in the Comte de Yandes gardens at Bayswater rotten dung is mixed with 
loam and peat. The pots should be well drained with pieces of potsherds, that they may not get soddened 
with too much wet, as nothing injures them more than over-watering, particularly when they are not in a 
growing state. When growing freely, they can scarcely have too much, and they should be watered all over 
the leaves with a fine rose pot. They are readily increased by cuttings or inarching on the commoner 
kinds. The cuttings should be taken off at a joint as soon as they are ripened, and planted in sand under 
a hand-glass, where they will soon strike root ; when this is the case, they should be planted singly into 
small pots, and set in a close frame, and they must afterwards be hardened to the air by degrees. (Sweet.) 
The single red Camellia Japonica is propagated by cuttings or layers and seeds for stocks, and on these 
the other kinds are generally inarched or budded. Henderson, of Wood-hall near Hamilton, puts in 
cuttings at any time of the year, except when they are making young wood ; lets them remain in a vinery 
for a month or more, and then puts them in a hot-bed, where there is a little bottom heat. A speedy mode 
of obtaining stocks is by planting stools in a pit devoted to that purpose, and laying them in autumn ; the 
following autumn most of the layers will be rooted, when they may be taken off and potted, and used as 
stocks the succeeding spring. Inarching or grafting is performed early in the spring, when the plants begin 
to grow ; the chief care requisite is so to place and fix the pot containing the stock, as that it may not be 
disturbed during the connection of the scion with the parent plant. The graft being clayed over is then 
covered with moss to prevent its cracking. When independent grafting is used, the mode called side 
grafting is generally used, and the operation of tongueing is generally omitted. 
C. Sasanqua seeds most readily, and is often employed as the female parent for raising new varieties. 
The plants so raised from seed, if well treated, flower in 4 or 5 years, and if nothing new is produced they 
still make excellent stocks. Henderson of Wood-hall, who is one of the most successful growers of Ca- 
mellias in Scotland, uses the following compost ; equal parts of light-brown mould, river sand and peat 
earth, and a little rotten leaves, mixed well together ; and when the camellias require shifting put some 
broken coal-char in the bottom of the pots, and some dry moss or Hypnum over it. 
He gives the following account of his mode of treating Camellias; “The best time for 
a regular shifting of the Camellia is the month of February and beginning of March. After shifting 
all those that require it, put them into a peach-house, vinery or pinery, or in the warmest part of a green- 
