(Camellia, Rose Sasanqua, Sasanqua )

The rose-pink flowered sasanqua has an upright habit and open loose branching. Its glossy dark green leaves are thin, leathery and elliptical. In early fall and winter it produces smaller single flowers of rich rose pink that surround a heart of gold filaments. The plants are long-blooming, and though the flowers are small they are numerous. It is not uncommon to see plants covered in flowers with many buds yet to open.

The colorful blooming jewels of Camellia sasanqua appear when late...

(Camellia, Sasanqua , Setsugekka Sasanqua)

Warm days, cool nights - fall and it’s time to look for the colorful blooming jewels of Camellia sasanqua. These evergreen shrubs don’t get as much attention as their more popular cousin, the large-flowered common Japanese camellia, but they should. Native to Japan, sasanquas, as they are known to garden enthusiasts, have a long history of use for tea, oil and ornament.

The cultivar ‘Setsugekka’ is a very popular selection. It has glossy, thin but leathery, elliptical, dark green leaves...

(Camellia, Sasanqua , Shishigashira Sasanqua)

Warm days, cool nights - fall and it’s time to look for the colorful blooming jewels of Camellia sasanqua. These evergreen shrubs don’t get as much attention as their more popular cousin, the large-flowered common Japanese camellia, but they should. Native to Japan, sasanquas, as they are known to garden enthusiasts, have a long history of use for tea, oil and ornament.

The Camellia sasanqua cultivar ‘Shishigashira’ has glossy, thin but leathery, elliptical, dark green leaves...

(Camellia, Sasanqua , Sparkling Burgundy Sasanqua)

Warm days, cool nights - fall and it’s time to look for the colorful blooming jewels of Camellia sasanqua. These evergreen shrubs don’t get as much attention as their more popular cousin, the large-flowered common Japanese camellia, but they should. Native to Japan, sasanquas, as they are known to garden enthusiasts, have a long history of use for tea, oil and ornament.

The cultivar ‘Sparkling Burgundy’ has glossy, thin but leathery, elliptical, dark green leaves with toothed margins....

(Camellia, Sasanqua , Stephanie Golden Sasanqua)

Warm days, cool nights - fall and it’s time to look for the colorful blooming jewels of Camellia sasanqua. These evergreen shrubs don’t get as much attention as their more popular cousin, the large-flowered common Japanese camellia, but they should. Native to Japan, sasanquas, as they are known to garden enthusiasts, have a long history of use for tea, oil and ornament.

The cultivar ‘Stephanie Golden’ has glossy, thin but leathery, elliptical, dark green leaves with toothed margins....

(Camellia, Sasanqua , Tanya Sasanqua)

Warm days, cool nights - fall and it’s time to look for the colorful blooming jewels of Camellia sasanqua. These evergreen shrubs don’t get as much attention as their more popular cousin, the large-flowered common Japanese camellia, but they should. Native to Japan, sasanquas, as they are known to garden enthusiasts, have a long history of use for tea, oil and ornament.

The cultivar ‘Tanya’ has glossy, thin but leathery, elliptical, dark green leaves with toothed margins which are...

(Camellia, Sasanqua , White Dove Sasanqua)

Warm days, cool nights - fall and it’s time to look for the colorful blooming jewels of Camellia sasanqua. These evergreen shrubs don’t get as much attention as their more popular cousin, the large-flowered common Japanese camellia, but they should. Native to Japan, sasanquas, as they are known to garden enthusiasts, have a long history of use for tea, oil and ornament.

The dwarf, variegated cultivar ‘White Doves’ has a low, spreading habit. Its glossy, dark-green leaves are have white...

(Tea, Tea Camellia)

The leaves and buds of this evergreen Chinese tree are the source of the favorite beverage, tea. If left unpruned, a mature tree can reach a substantial size and typically has an upright habit and spreading crown. When grown for tea production, tea trees are severely pruned on a regular basis to keep them short and shrubby for easy harvest and heavier leaf production.

Tea trees have dark green, oval leaves that are leathery, glossy and have tiny teeth on the edges. Their central rib, or vein,...

(Rose Tea, Tea, Tea Camellia)

Blooming with pretty, pale-pink, fragrant flowers in autumn, ‘Rosea’ is a selection of its far more famous parent, the white-flowering camellia that gives us tea leaves. An evergreen tree with an upright to spreading habit, the parent species is native to China. When grown ornamentally (or yes, even for tea production), the plants are pruned to keep them in shrub-like form. Keep in mind that all tea plants, including ‘Rosea,’ are very slow growing.

This camellia has leathery, dark green, glossy...

(Vernal Camellia)

Vernal camellia is a long-lived evergreen shrub believed to be derived from a natural cross between Camellia japonica and C. sasanqua. Its evergreen leaves are glossy, dark green and elliptical, and its bark is smooth and gray. It has many cultivars, which display a variety of single, semi-double or double blossoms in various shades of pink, red-violet or white. These open after the fall-flowering sasanquas but before the winter-blooming common Japanese camellias.

Vernal camellias...