As the greater part of the different varieties of this
species, bear perfect stigmas, tliey will therefore produce
perfect seeds, if care be taken to procure pollen
from a different variety; in doing this, particidar care
and attention is necessary to procure the stamens from
the most double flowers that bear them, and also to
consider what two colours would produce the most dis-
tinot and beautiful colour, intermediate between the
two ; several of the sorts that arc generally very double,
occasionally bear a few perfect anthers ; those are
the best for fertilizing the others with, as the seeds
I’rom them will produce much finer flowers than from
those that have been set with the more single so rts;
and as the varieties from seed are now become so numerous,
if they are not very fine and distinct they will
certainly not be worth cultivating, except as stocks to
work the finer sorts on.
The Camellia is not generally so much cultivated as
it deserves, though it is very hardy, standing onr severest
Winters when planted out against a wall or in any
sheltered situation, without protection ; but being such
an early flowering plant, the buds are often much injured
and sometimes destroyed, if not covered a little
in severe frosty weather ; we believe a northern aspect
woidd suit it better than a southern, as it would not be
so liable to frequent and sudden thaws in the day and
frost at night, which injures plants that are somewhat
tender, more than they are injured by not being thawed
while the frost lasts ; we proved this by several species
of C/stii.s the last Winter, those in a south border being
all killed, when the same sorts in a north border, which
we expected to have seen all destroyed, were scarcely
injured in the least, and are now thriving well and
coming full in flower.
The Camellia is also one of the most proper jilants for growing in
the window of a light room, as it is much more liardy than tlie Gerli-
nium tribe, and reqidres nothing in IVinter but to be watered when
dry; we have seen ¡ilants treated this way liower liner, and continue
in flower mncb longer than those cnltivatod in the Greenbonse. The
best soil to grow tliem in, is a mixture o f loam, peat, and sand, the
greatest proportion of the former, and the pots to be well drained,
I bat the wet may pass olf readily.
Caiibdlia was named in bononr of (Jcorge Camellns, a Moravian
missionary, who travelled in Asia; he wrote a history of the plants
of the island of Lucon, published in the history of plants by John
Uav, 1704.