Christmas camellia is an attractive shrub with beautiful white to red flowers and contrasting dark green evergreen leaves.
The genus Camellia includes over 200 species, including Camellia sinensis (tea), and many other species well known to gardeners around the world. Camellia sasanqua, which is native to Japan, is particularly valued for its autumn and winter flowering, although it prefers a mild climate and needs protection from the coldest weather.
Camellia sasanqua was named by Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-1828), a Swedish physician and botanist and a protégé of Linnaeus. Thunberg visited Japan (at that time closed to most Europeans) from 1775-1778 while in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, and many of the plants he saw there were described in his Flora Japonica, published in 1784.
