Species
+

Camellia japonica L.

Camellia, Camellia, Common camellia, Common camellia

Climate known 59 photographs Temperate garden plant
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Camellia japonica, known as common camellia, or Japanese camellia, is a species of flowering plant from the genus Camellia in the tea family Theaceae. It is native to China and Japan, and grows naturally in forests at altitudes of around 300–1,100 metres (980–3,600 ft).

Text from Wikipedia, “Camellia japonica”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Camellia

Camellia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are found in tropical and subtropical areas in eastern and southern Asia, from the Himalayas east to Japan and Indonesia. There are more than 220 described species; almost all are found in southern China and Indochina. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Camellia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Theaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
China North-Central, China Southeast, Japan +3
Wild records
1109 in range· 795 open

At a glance

Warmest month
28°C
Aug, mean day; nights 23 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1917mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 274 mm (CHELSA)
Light
15–35DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a temperate garden plant by the genus Camellia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, March and May to October in the northern hemisphere (March and May to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1917 mm a year, wettest July at 274 mm, driest December at 61 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 35 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -3.8 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Camellia bonnardii Berl.; Camellia bonnardii Berl. ex Lem.; Camellia bononicana Anon.; Camellia fimbriata P.B.Mead; Camellia florida Salisb. and 45 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a temperate garden plant by the genus Camellia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, March and May to October in the northern hemisphere (March and May to October at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (1445 mm of 1917 mm) falls in March and May to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 19.4 °C against a yearly mean of 14.7 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to April and September.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1917 mm a year, wettest July at 274 mm, driest December at 61 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1917 mm a year at the habitat, 1445 mm of it March and May to October. Wettest month July at 274 mm, driest December at 61 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1373 mm to 3178 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 35 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 35 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 12, the highest 90th-percentile month 37).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -3.8 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -3.8 °C, the absolute minimum -14.7 °C, about 32 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.8 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 0.6 °C in January (across the envelope cells -5.4 °C to 6.2 °C), warmest day 27.7 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -3.8 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 57 to 68% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 7 °C in Jan to 28 °C in Aug; mean night from 1 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1917 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 867 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -14.7 °C and the 99th-percentile day 36.8 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost36.8° 99th-percentile day (undated)-14.7° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 15–35RH 57–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 867 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C7 / 2–117 / 2–1211 / 6–1516 / 12–1920 / 16–2323 / 20–2627 / 24–2928 / 26–3025 / 22–2720 / 17–2314 / 11–189 / 5–14
Night °C1 / -5–61 / -5–74 / -2–99 / 4–1414 / 10–1818 / 14–2122 / 19–2423 / 20–2520 / 16–2314 / 9–188 / 3–133 / -3–9
Rain mm72 / 35–27890 / 46–196144 / 77–224144 / 95–237170 / 114–278237 / 157–415274 / 165–395232 / 141–335226 / 165–365162 / 55–251105 / 53–27561 / 29–278
DLI16 / 14–1921 / 19–2327 / 25–2933 / 30–3535 / 32–3733 / 29–3632 / 30–3633 / 30–3527 / 23–2923 / 19–2517 / 15–1915 / 12–18
RH %57 / 53–6558 / 54–6459 / 56–6359 / 57–6262 / 59–6566 / 63–7068 / 64–7366 / 63–6964 / 62–6760 / 57–6459 / 55–6358 / 54–64

Each figure is the median across the 867 grid cells holding the 1069 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1188:5887 (30.575, 114.375). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -14.7 °C, 1st-percentile night -3.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.8 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 867 distinct grid cells holding the 1069 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1188:5887 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 30.50_114.375, lapse-corrected -7 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 22 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeChina North-Central, China Southeast, Japan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan· introduced: Gulf of Guinea Is., China South-Central, Assam, India, Vietnam, Arkansas, Juan Fernández Is.
Kew's description“shrub or tree” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker36.008, 139.084 · in the densest population, 711 records (64% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1109 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 795 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 35 km away. 143 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 40 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 1109 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Camellia japonicaCamellia japonicaCamellia japonicaCamellia japonicaCamellia japonicaCamellia japonicaCamellia japonicaCamellia japonica

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (3); (c) Hugo Innes, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); (c) Marco Mussita, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Camellia japonica, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Biomass-derived activated carbon with simultaneously enhanced CO 2 uptake for both pre and post combustion capture applications
Helena Matabosch Coromina, Darren A. Walsh, Robert Mokaya (2015) · Journal of Materials Chemistry A
Genetic control of isozyme variation in Camellia japonica L.
Jonathan F. Wendel, Clifford R. Parks (1982) · Journal of Heredity
Studies on the Biochemical Formation Pathway of the Amino Acid l -Theanine in Tea (Camellia sinensis) and Other Plants
Sihua Cheng, Xiumin Fu, Xiaoqin Wang, Yinyin Liao (2017) · Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
A Review on the Biological Activity of Camellia Species
Ana Margarida Teixeira, Clara Sousa (2021) · Molecules
Sterols, methylsterols, and triterpene alcohols in threeTheaceae and some other vegetable oils
Toshihiro Itoh, Toshitake Tamura, Tarô Matsumoto (1974) · Lipids
Biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles by using Camellia japonica leaf extract for the electrocatalytic reduction of nitrobenzene and photocatalytic degradation of Eosin-Y
Raj Karthik, Mani Govindasamy, Shen-Ming Chen, Yi-Hui Cheng (2017) · Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B Biology
GENETIC STRUCTURE OF AGE CLASSES IN CAMELLIA JAPONICA (THEACEAE)
Mi Yoon Chung, Bryan K. Epperson, MYONG CHUNG (2003) · Evolution

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Camellia 3 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 154 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.