This is Camellia sinensis var sinensis. Basically the true autumn flowering tea camellia. A dull plant with tiny flowers which looks like a vaccinum species from a distance. Nothing like the tea camellias at Tregothnan or what the nursery sells as C. sinensis. We take some cuttings for Asia.

Camellia reticulata ‘Arch of Triumph’ is very fine. See how the flower shape changes and increases as it develops. The colour pales too.

Camellia xylocarpa which has huge seed pods. Tom collected this in the wild. Not a lot to recommend the flowers but the leaves are easily identified and the seeds give it away. Again we take a few cuttings for Asia.

Rhododendron albotomentosum (arboreum series looking at its bark) was a Kingdom Ward collection from Mount Victoria in Burma. Tom’s father grows this in New Zealand.

Camellia chekiangoleosa has peculiar buds which look as though they have been frosted. We have a seed grown plant of this in the greenhouse. Maurice Foster grew this first in the UK and removed all the buds thinking they were dead. Droopy habit.

Polyspora longicarpa (formerly gordonia) – gordonias are now limited to American species and polyspora are the Asian ones. Tom has around 10 species but there is much muddle as we will see. Our two species at Caerhays may well both be incorrectly labelled.

The true Camellia taliensis (which I have been calling oleifera incorrectly for years). This plant is in total shade which ours are not.

Camellia crapnelliana seems to set tender and very odd new growth in March and September. As such it gets cut to the ground, as here, from time to time. Hong Kong species.

Camellia highnanensis grows on an island off the south coast of China. Also probably too tender to grow even in Cornwall.

Polyspora axillaris has a more shrubby habit without the tall central leader that most other polyspora species exhibit. No flowers here but a cold spot in the east wind today. P. axillaris is the only species from Taiwan.

Lindera cercidifolia is full out. A small tree with good bark and quite unlike ours which is shrubby and flowers later in the season. Much confusion in the reference books about this species.

Rhododendron protistum x Rhododendron macabeanum – very early into flower for a big leaf and very fine indeed.

Rhododendron giganteum just coming out beside it.

Polyspora speciosa with strong scent (very attractive) and pink in the petals. The best form/species seen so far today.

Polyspora yunnanensis (= longiocarpa as reclassified but doubts remain) nearly over. Odd flaking on the bark where the side branches have grown out from the main stem.

Perhaps the second best thing we saw out today with fabulous scent was a tree like Illicium macranthum. New species to us.

Camellia fraterna, which we grow too, needs to be on a bank as it has a droopy habit. We also have Camellia ‘Tiny Princess’ which has similar leaves. Both quite dull.

Euonymus japonicus ‘Wolong Ghost’ which Burncoose stocks. Here romping away up a tree. Tom plants vigorous climbers like this on the north side of trees and lets them grow round into the light. The attractive central variegation on the leaves is only evident on the lower growth at this time of the year.

So this is the true Camellia tsai. The plants at Caerhays which I have been gaily calling tsai for years are in fact Camellia cuspidata var cuspidata. I am not sure where the true tsai one grew here but I recognise the shape and habit. Perhaps behind the top wall? We have young plants in the ground now anyway and I am by no means certain that the young plants below Rookery Path and in the Rookery are all C. cuspidata as opposed to C. tsai. Another howling error of mine only brought to light by the argument over Trewithen’s C. cuspidata var grandiflora which is listed in their planting records as C. cuspidata x C. saluenensis, ie ‘Cornish Snow’ (see emails a week or two ago)!

Camellia lapidea is another dullish species in flower but with highly serrated leaves.

This is the true Camellia lutchuensis which is different from the Toots Williams plant pinched as seed from Hong Kong originally. We only have C. lutchuensis hybrids and not yet, I think, the real thing. Lutchuensis is easily identifiable as the new growth has a red tinge. We did however find a young unnamed species which Tom thinks might be Camellia caudata. If so it looks identical to the rather pretty Toots plant. It grows near Hong Kong in the wild too so this begins to make sense. Tom says that Camellia transnokoensis is now reclassified as a form of C. lutchuensis. Ours died in the cold in 2012.

These are all true forms of Camellia oleifera which is also autumn flowering. How I could have muddled this with Camellia taliensis beggars belief! We do have some hybrids but perhaps not the true species.

Rhododendron zeylanicum (arboreum ssp zeylanicum) is the best thing in the Tregrehan garden today. In the teeth of the wind by the car park. Fabulous!

Camellia bailingshanica – dull but rare!

Seedlings aplenty under another Camellia taliensis.

The tiny flowered Camellia kissii. We have tried this and lost it.

Camellia minor – dull too! Much like Camellia saluenensis I think as does Tom.

Camellia forrestii – I have wondered before why this has died out in cultivation when Forrest wrote about it so admiringly. We have a few young plants and here are Tom’s. A wonderful species which will become a garden favourite I expect. Nice bark striping too.

Pyrenaria spectabilis seems about halfway between a camellia species and a polyspora species (formerly called Tutcheria spectabilis). A totally new genus to me which, one day, we could perhaps try from cuttings from Tom. Autumn flowering from Yunnan. Here you see the fruits forming which are not camellia like at all nor like polyspora either.

The best polyspora which we saw in flower (most nearly over) was this one in the west garden. Polyspora longicarpa was a 20-25ft tree covered in flower today. We found some year old ripe fruits with seeds on another group nearby which Asia can try but I fear they will be too old to germinate. I need to rush and check the labelling on our two species which I fear may be labelled the wrong way around. The top bushy one is labelled P. longicarpa and the lower tall, single stemmed one is labelled Polyspora axillaris. The flowers will soon be over.

Shit, another silly blunder by us! Xanthocyparis vietnamensis has juvenile spiny growth which turns, as here in Tom’s three plants, to a cypress like tall growing tree. A quite extraordinary transformation at around 6-8ft. Two of Tom’s plants have virtually no juvenile growth left while the third has just started to metamorphose into something else. We must move our plant which is in a daft position for what it will clearly grow into. We had assumed it was a dwarf conifer and tender. Wrong on both counts. Asia should keep on propagating the juvenile growth on this extraordinary rarity.

So what have we learnt today? We do grow ancient plants of Camellia taliensis and Camellia cuspidata var cuspidata but we have lost our old Camellia tsai UNLESS this is the old plant which fell and is no reshooting on Burns Bank above the mounting block. No flowers on it this year.I am hopeful that Michael has pictures of Camellia cuspidata var cuspidata in Tom’s walled garden. I was too shocked at my longstanding error to take any.

Email from Tom hudon:-Hi Charles,

i thought the following paper would be interesting, as a follow up to the podo article.

I am sending some putative hybrid salignus material to Edinburgh next week for more DNA analysis.

That small plant of Podo. neriifolius you took came from Nth Vietnam.

I finally got round to looking at Toots camellia last night.

It came out as Camellia euryoides aff. As it had shrivalled somewhat it was hard to look at detail with the hand lens.

The camellia plant that looked similar near the walled garden turned out to be different and most likely Camellia fraterna.

When I was out last evening the Polyspora trees down the bottom still had exposed good white flowers and the temp. on the stump had been down to –4C.

So we can say that the Vietnamese speciosa and longicarpa flowers can withstand light frost for short periods.

Most tender plants look ok still, just hope we dont get a dumping tomorrow to break all the trees up.

I well remember your Dad laughing till he hurt when someone said they had been cold at –5C.

We then got the full chapter and verse of 1963…..

Soon

Tom