The Culture of Camellias

Additional Resources

Some web resources on camellias and camellia history:

• The American Camellia Society
• The International Camellia Society including the ICS Camellia Treasury of historic camellia images
• Who was Captain Welbank

Print resources on camellias consulted for this project:

George Graves, "Verschaffelt's Nouvelle Iconographie des Camellias," pp. 167-177, in The American Camellia Yearbook 1978, Fort Valley, GA: America Camellia Society, 1978.

Blanche Henrey, British Botanical and Horticultural Literature before 1800, 3 vols., London: Oxford University Press, 1975.

William Hertrich, Camellias in the Huntington Gardens, San Marino, CA: Huntington Botanical Gardens, 1954.

H. Harold Hume, Camellias in America, Harrisburg, PA: J. Horace McFarland, 1946.
--Part I, "Historical," includes chapters on the importation of camellias from Asia to Europe and on early American camellia growers, while part IV, ch. 23, gives an annotated bibliography of camellia literature. In his preface, Dr. Hume acknowledges the help he had received from Mrs. Sheffield Phelps.

Hume, "Camellia History from Petiver to Linnaeus," pp. 3-7, in The American Camellia Yearbook 1946, Gainesville, FL: America Camellia Society, 1946.

Hume, "Kamel-Kaempfer-Linnaeus," pp. 259-264, in The American Camellia Yearbook 1952, Gainesville, FL: America Camellia Society, 1952.

Roger Mortimer, Camellias: an exhibit of XIXth Century Books, Columbia, SC: Thomas Cooper Library, 1986.

Claudia Lea Phelps, "A short history of camellias," pp. 39-44, in her A camellia note book, [Augusta, Ga.: Walton, ?1940].
--especially useful because based on the Phelps Collection books.

[Davy-Jo Stribling Ridge], The Memorial Collection of Garden Books of Mrs. Sheffield Phelps and Miss Claudia Lea Phelps, [Columbia, SC: McKissick Memorial Library, 1960].
--this listing covers all aspects of the collection, not only the camellia books.

Patrick Scott, The Culture of Camellias: an exhibit chiefly from the Phelps Memorial Collection, Columbia, SC: Thomas Cooper Library, 1999.
--the full text of the slightly more extensive exhibit on which this site was based.

E.T.H. Shaffer, Carolina Gardens, Garden Club Edition, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1939.
--Aiken and Rose Hill on pp. 195-203.

James Stokes, "Early Occidental Camelliana, Part II: Camellia descriptions prior to 1695," pp. 264-283, in The American Camellia Yearbook 1952, Gainsville, FL: America Camellia Society, 1952.

Allan Stevenson, Catalogue of Botanical Works in the Collection of Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt, 2 vols [3 parts], Pittsburgh: Hunt Botanical Library, 1961.