I 
4. 
CAMELLIA RETICULATA. 
Captain Rawes's Camellia. 
Camellia Reticulata , foliis oblongis acuminatis serratis reticulatis planis, ramulis 
petiolisque glabris, ovario sericeo. Lindley. 
Camellia Reticulata. Botanical Register, t. 1078. Botanical Magazine, t. 2784. 
THE merit of first introducing this fine species is due to Captain 
Richard Rawes, of the Honorable East India Company’s service, who 
brought home a plant of it, in 1820, for his friend, Thomas Carey 
Palmer, Esq., at the same time 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 Camellias. The branches are round, smooth, and erect, sparingly 
furnished with oblong, sharp-pointed, thick, flat, strongly reticulated, 
dull green leaves, usually three inches and a half long, and upwards of 
an inch broad, with a strong pale green midrib, and numerous small 
sharp serratures. The foot-stalks 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, 
and covered with six or more proportionably large, roundish, concave, 
pale green, pubescent scales; the inner ones often coloured at the edges 
like the petals. 
The flowers are remarkably handsome, and have a great resem¬ 
blance, both in form and colour, to those of the Rceonia Moutan Rosea. 
They usually appear during the months of February, March, and April, 
and measure, when expanded, no less than five inches and a half in 
diameter. The petals are about seventeen or twenty in number, of a 
clear purplish-red colour, much undulated, and irregularly and loosely 
arranged; each of them is two inches and a half long, and rather more 
than an inch broad at the extremity, 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 different 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, 
