33. 
"\ 
CAMELLIA JAPONICA ALBA SEMIDUPLEX. 
Mr. Palmer's Semi-double White Camellia. 
WHEN we prepared the account of the Chinese Camellias in this 
country for the Horticultural Society, the variety now before us was 
but imperfectly known, and even at the present time its history is rather 
involved in obscurity. We are indebted for its introduction to Mr. 
Palmer of Bromley, who informed us that he purchased his plant at a 
Garden on the Continent, in 1822. (?) How, or by whom, it was carried 
to the Continent, we have not been able to ascertain ; but from inquiries 
made by Mr. Sabine, when Secretary of the Horticultural Society, we 
have learned, through a letter to him, from John Beeves, Esq. dated 
Canton, Feb. 1st, 1826, that Mr. Ball was the first who sent a plant of 
it to England, from whence it was forwarded by some means to Bouen, 
together with the Yok Yeep, the plant which produces the bamboo-like 
leaves which envelope the green tea chests. From this source it is 
probable Mr. Palmer’s plant originated. 
In habit and foliage it has much resemblance to the Pompone and 
Paeony-flowered varieties; being of slender growth, with upright pale- 
coloured branches, sparingly furnished with dark green, oval, pointed 
leaves, about the size of those of the Pompone, and similarly recurved 
at the edges. They are likewise sharply serrated, and have a conspicuous 
pale-coloured midrib. The footstalks appear to be rather thicker and 
shorter than in the varieties just referred to, but in other respects we 
think them the same. 
The flower buds are peculiar, being long and pointed, like the buds 
of the Single Bed, but of a paler green colour, and more pubescent. 
The flowers consist of about eight or nine roundish white petals, 
ranged in two rows, or even three rows, when they happen to be more 
numerous than we have stated; and average rather more than four inches 
in expansion. They are at first bell-shaped, but in the course of a few 
s 
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