The camphor tree, a native of China, Taiwan and South Japan, can grow to a height of up to 35 metres. It is the natural source of camphor, which provides various types of essential oil. The raw material is obtained from the bark and resin of the tree. The colourless or white camphor has a pleasant, eucalyptus-like smell, but it is poisonous and has a sharp, bitter taste.
The camellia, which is orginally a native of East Asia and is closely related to the tea bush, was named after Georg Joseph Kamel, a German Jesuit priest and apothecary. However, the camellia owes its rise to a misunderstanding. It was taken for a tea bush. Today many varieties of camellia actually provide raw material for tea, but generally they are used as a source of oil.
After 1750 the camellia found its way into European palace gardens. One of the most famous specimens at that time made its way to Dresden, to the park of Schloss Pillnitz. Today, this crimson red, flowering Pillnitz camellia has a diameter of eleven metres and is nine metres tall – and between February and April it produces as many as 35,000 blossoms.
The camellia was launched on its path to fame in 1800, when European nurseries developed a great interest in breeding the plants. This was favoured by the distinctive changes which often occur on some branches of the plant, affecting the colour of the flower, the shape of the flower and even the leaves. At the time, one Dresden camellia nursery managed to cultivate more than 1,100 varieties.
With the publication of Alexander Dumas’ “The Lady of the Camellias” in 1848, the camellia not only entered the arena of world literature, but five years later also conquered the opera stage, which later formed the basis for Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata”. In both, the central figure is a woman who always wore camellias. Both Dumas’ novel and Verdi’s opera were a huge success.
In 1692 George Meister described the camellia in his travelogue as a “small tree, between six and eight feet high, with thick, stiff, serrated leaves like the leaves of a pear tree. Its flowers are red like Malva hortensis; when it has flowered for six days they fall off and produce a black seed, like a tea seed.”
In Japan the camellia was once a popular decorative shrub. It was a symbol of friendship, elegance and harmony and played an important role during court and tea ceremonies. Perhaps the fame of the tsubaki, as the camellia is known in Japanese, is also due to the fact that it was considered the flower that heralds spring.
