Mountain tea flower is the Chinese description of the plant we call Camellia. In early February 2012, I travelled to south-west China to attend the International Camellia Society’s (ICS) 27th congress, their 50th anniversary celebrations and the 8th National Camellia Expo and cultural festival in Chuxiong, China.
After the congress, I would travel throughout Yunnan in the footsteps of the great plant hunters George Forrest and Frank Kingdom-ward, both of whom Trewithen helped to fund as part of a syndicate in the early twentieth century. I planned to visit the actual villages where they stayed on their adventures. Tengchong was one such place where both were based (George in 1904, the year when George Johnstone inherited Trewithen). I would be based on the central plateau at 1780 m.
The aim was to see native Camellia reticulata in the wild on the Heinu and Zixi Mountains, which are regarded as an important gene pool for many of the Theaceae family. Visits to temples containing plants of Kunming reticulatas (also known as ‘Yunnan camellias’), the origin of our Lion Head and Nobel Pearl plants we have growing at Trewithen today, would make a direct link between the garden and China. Whilst on the trip, I would make use of new contacts and acquaintances to facilitate seed exchange to enhance the plant collection at Trewithen.
After the lavish opening ceremony, held in the ‘ancient town of the Yi-nationality’, a newly constructed small town built as an internal Chinese tourist destination, we walked the red carpet through the town, which was lined with thousands of Yi-nationals, an ethnic minority group native to Yunnan province totalling around 3 million. All were brightly coloured in their traditional costumes, singing and dancing, as we walked by. Lining the streets of the town was a camellia display that was quite simply out of this world. It was one of the displays set up for the 8th Chuxiong Camellia Expo: the sheer number and variety of C. reticulata hybrids on display was mind blowing. The camellia is revered in Yunnan and is deeply engrained in the culture of the population, so the expo attracts a huge number of Chinese tourists every year.
With temperatures reaching 30ºC, a walk up the Zi shan mountain was always going to be tough going; at an altitude of 2700 m, it was hard. After a display including a ‘sacrifice ceremony’, in which a chicken gave its life for the health of an ancient camellia, within a temple perched on the hillside, we visited a garden that only included cultivars of C. reticulata. The ICS directors performed a ceremonial tree planting, flanked on either side by girls dressed in their Yi national costumes. The tree in question was a large C. reticulata hybrid as a centrepiece of a formal area within the garden. The rest of the day soon became one of the highlights of the trip. We walked higher into the mountain, away from cultivated land and deep into native forest. In just a short space of a few metres I identified several plants all growing wild that I grow in the garden at Trewithen: wild C. reticulata, C. yunnanensis, C. yuhsienensis, Rhododendron spinuliferum, R. delavayi, Daphne bhoula, Sarcococca hookeriana and Magnolia doltsopa, to name but a few. Heaven! One of the reasons I wanted to go to China was to see the wild flora, and here I was, up a mountain, doing just that – amazing!
At the closing ceremony, Pat Short, ICS president, presented several awards for research projects and a lifetime achievement award, and I was proud to receive for Trewithen the ICS Garden of Excellence Award. Only 30 gardens in the world have reached the tough criteria as set out by the board of the ICS.
The trips got better and better. One day we walked through Hemu, an ancient village at the foot of a mountain and almost cut off from the twenty-first century, apart from the occasional satellite dish – the houses are going to rack and ruin, but at least the locals can watch a bit of telly!As we walked through the village, seeing meat hung out to dry, and chickens and dogs roaming free, locals stared at us as if we were aliens. Well, you could understand their confusion, it was as strange for us as it was for them. Carrying on through the dusty, dirt track, we started to see C. reticulata in flower: first at a burial site and then in a small forest of semi-mature trees with an understorey of seedling reticulata. Beyond and as we ascended to about 3300 m was the biggest stand of camellia I have ever seen! A single-storey village shop was completely dwarfed by these huge trees, in full bloom. They were at least 20 m tall and there were dozens of them this size – it was truly breathtaking. These trees must have been growing here when George Forrest was collecting in this area. He may well have walked past the very same trees! I truly was following in the footsteps of the great man.
And just to top things off, our guide took us to a 1000-year-old tree – I don’t know whether it was quite as old as that, but it was certainly a very impressive specimen, 32 m tall and with a girth of over 2 m it was truly a monster! This was why I had come to China: to see wild camellia growing native, untouched by humans, just perfect.
Gary Long
Head Gardener, Trewithen
The trip was part funded by the Royal Horticultural Society, ICS and Trewithen; my thanks go to all involved, including my wife and family.