18 The camellia Journal18 The camellia Journal

a Chinese mutation of a California camellia gives us the unique ‘Red leaf Bella’—with a dazzling combination of dark red flowers and leaves. BY GAO JIYIN

CHiNa RED‘Red Leaf Bella’

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December 2009-February 2010 19

along with the increase in camellia cultivars developed by grafting and introduced from overseas, many “abnormal” or “peculiar” mutation cultivars have occurred in china in

recent years. The most successful and noticeable is ‘red leaf bella’. both its flowers and leaves are

an eye-catching dark red. and the story of how the cultivar came to be is equally exciting.

When i first obtained two scions of ‘nuccio’s bella rossa’ in the spring of 2002, i knew the flowers of this outstanding cultivar were double, red, large, and long blooming. i liked it very much and immediately put the scions into the lao Feng camellia Garden of Jinhua city, Zhejiang province, to propagate them in secret. We propagated three plants by grafting, using C. japonica ‘hongluzhen’, a quick growing and highly resistant camellia cultivar, as rootstock. The three grafted plants all survived and grew well. no changes

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‘Red Leaf Bella Variegated’. This striking cultivar

manifested itself during the propagation of

‘Red Leaf Bella’.

CHiNa REDdecjournal 11-24-09.indd 19 12/7/2009 5:57:06 PM

20 The camellia Journal

The camellia’s dazzling dark red leaves decorate the plant in spring and summer.

on the plants were found after we propagated more than 100 plants. but suddenly one day, when we had grafted more than 500, we found one of the plants was displaying dark red leaves.

i realized that this was a true, valuable mutation and cut off the dark red scion and grafted it again. The grafted plant with dark red leaves grew normally, and i felt sure that the dark red leaves would remain true showing that the dark red leaf mutation had been successfully separated. We propagated the red mutation continuously on a large scale for four years, creating 5,000 grafted plants of the mutation — and all of them had dark red leaves. We named it ‘red leaf bella’.

it was conjectured that the cause of the mutation might be due to a chromosome in a cell of a scion of ‘nuccio’s bella rossa’ being broken during grafting. it was this accidental cell that grew and developed into a bud which had the dark red leaves. This is a very rare mutation in camellias, and gives the camellia world a pleasant surprise.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ‘RED LEAF BELLA’ The buds of both leaves and flowers of ‘red leaf bella’ are dark red, and sepals are white villous (villous refers to a specific type of hairs; botanists have many different words for specific types of hairs.) The flowers are double, large to very large, dark red with some waxy shining. The petals are broad, round and imbricated (“overlapping evenly like roof tiles”) as well as having visible dark veins; the color will gradually change from dark red to purplish dark red as the flowers open. The tender leaves are very dark and shiny red; the mature leaves are thick, black-green with some dark gleams and sometimes with a few small purple spots. The plants are compact and grow strongly like ‘nuccio’s ‘bella rossa’. blooming season is october to may in eastern china.

it has been shown that the dark red color of leaves of ‘red leaf bella’ is present from spring to midsummer. This dark red color will thin out gradually as the leaves mature and will change into black-green in autumn or in winter. in fact, red leaves are present year long because new shoots sprout frequently from the plants.

observations of this mutation cultivar, (sport), showed that photosynthesis occurs in the dark red leaves just as it does in the green leaves of ‘nuccio’s bella rossa’. consequently, ‘red leaf bella’ grows well and strongly and can resist diseases and pests, which is very different from many mutation cultivars. This muta-tion is very consistent in its dark red leaf characteristic, and we have never seen it revert since it was first separated from ‘nuc-cio’s bella rossa’.

EVALUATION The flowers are dark red, double, large and show a reflected light, similar to that of a rose. The leaves are dark red, dense, thick and beautiful, giving a formal feeling. The dazzling flower-leaf combination is better in the landscape than red clouds in spring and summer!

GENEALOGY in addition to ‘red leaf bella’, we have another mutation named ‘bella rossa Variegated’, obtained during the cultivating and propagating of ‘nuccio’s bella rossa’. ‘bella rossa Variegated’ has green leaves, but its flowers are bright red with many white spots. also ‘red leaf bella’ has mutated a new sport named ‘red leaf bella Variegated’ and these flowers have a lot of white spots.

The three mutations from ‘nuccio’s bella rossa’ all grow strongly. Without question, the most valuable is ‘red leaf bella’.

CULTIVATION ‘red leaf bella’ is easy to grow because of its strong adaptability to different environments. as with other camellia cultivars, it likes soils that are acid, loose, rich and well drained. it can grow well in full sunlight in summer and in cold weather in the winter. in win-ter, even though subjected to temperatures of below -5 degrees c, (23 degrees F) none of the tender dark red shoots were damaged that had sprouted at the end of autumn. it should be mentioned that this mutated cultivar has dense flower buds, and it is neces-sary to thin out some of the buds in order to increase the size of individual blooms.

Plants can be propagated by cuttings or grafting, but i think that grafting is better because it gives quicker results. already there have been more than 10,000 plants propagated at camellia nurseries in eastern china.

IN THE GARDEN‘red leaf bella’ is valuable for both container growing or in a landscape. its red flowers can be enjoyed in winter and spring, and its red leaves can be appreciated in spring and summer. it is expected that the cultivar will be widely used in landscaping, such as flower hedges, flower beds and flower borders n

Editor’s note: in china, ‘nuccio’s bella rossa’ is re-named as ‘beila Dameigui’; ‘nuccio’s bella rossa Variegated’ as ‘huabeila’; ‘red leaf bella’ as ‘hongye beila’; and ‘red leaf bella Variegated’ as ‘hongye huabeila’. in the u S ‘nuccio's bella rossa' and its variegated form are avail-able from nuccio's nurseries in altadena, california. it is hoped the ‘red leaf bella’ cultivars will be available late next year.

Gao Jiyin, Liu Xinkai, Huang Wanjian, Chen Guanghui(Palm Valley, Zhaoqing, Guangdong, China,526112)Chen Hong (Shanghai Jingwen Afforestation & Arts Development Co. Ltd.,Shanghai, China)

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December 2009-February 2010 21

HiS iS a VERy RaRE mutation in camellias, and gives the camellia world a pleasant surprise.

‘Bella Rossa Variegated’ was another surprise

cultivar during the propagation of

‘Red Leaf Bella’

The sepals are white villous.

This color change in ‘Red Leaf Bella’

sometimes appears late in the season.

gao Jiyin

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