Pillnitz camellia

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Camellia with a movable greenhouse
Flowers of the Pillnitz camellia
Old camellia house, 1983

The Pillnitz camellia is one of the oldest camellias in Europe ( Camellia japonica ) . Now over 230 years old, it has reached a height of around 8.90 meters and a diameter of almost 11 meters. Up to 35,000 flowers appear during their flowering period, which lasts from February to April. These are crimson in color, unfilled and without fragrance. The plant is located in the park of Pillnitz Castle and is protected from frost by a mobile greenhouse.

history

The first specimens of the camellias native to Southeast and East Asia were brought to Europe as early as the 17th century. According to a widespread but increasingly doubted legend, the Pillnitz camellia is said to have been brought to Kew Gardens in London as one of four specimens by Carl Peter Thunberg from his trip to Japan from 1775 to 1776 . While one of the four plants remained in London, the rest were given away to other royal gardens. One copy went to Schönbrunn , another was given to the Berggarten in Hanover-Herrenhausen and the fourth is said to have reached the court in Dresden in the 1780s . If this thesis were correct, the Pillnitz camellia would be the only surviving specimen of the four camellias brought from Japan.

In 1801 it was verifiably planted by the then journeyman gardener and later court gardener Carl Adolph Terscheck in the place in the park of Pillnitz Castle where it is still located today. While they were initially covered with straw and raffia mats in winter, a heated winter house was built very soon for winter storage. In January 1905 the wooden shelter burned down due to overheating of the boiler house. Since the extinguishing water froze to an iceberg at the then prevailing temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius, the plant survived the fire. It sprouted again the following spring.

In 1992 a new, glass shelter was inaugurated for the Pillnitz camellia. This 13.2 meter high and 54 ton house now protects the camellia from October to May. The modern, 1864 cubic meter mobile building replaces a wooden protective structure, which was previously erected and dismantled around the precious camellia every year at great expense for the cold half of the year. It is heated to an air temperature of four to six degrees Celsius. In the warm season, the camellia's protective winter house is moved to the side. The glass house drives on only four wheels, supported on a broad gauge, track width 10,800 millimeters.

Current research

More recent research increasingly refutes the previously put forward thesis that the Pillnitz camellia is one of the specimens brought back from Japan by Karl Peter Thunberg. Despite rigorous bookkeeping, z. For example, there are no plants recorded in Kew Gardens that were sent or given by Thunberg. However, it is certain that the Pillnitz camellia came to the Dresden court between 1770 and 1790 and was planted here in 1801. It has also been proven that it is the oldest European camellia north of the Alps.

Even if the press reported otherwise, the origin is still unclear. A phenotypic equality of the three oldest camellias in Europe , which are in Caserta (Italy), Campobello (Portugal) and Pillnitz, established in 2009 with regard to their morphological-botanical parameters of leaf and flower as well as molecular DNA markers, indicates a vegetative reproduction, So over cuttings, these three plants. A great genetic similarity to these specimens in Italy and Portugal and to a camellia from the Greifswald botanical garden was also found in another multi-year study by the TU Dresden in 2015. The historical legend that the Pillnitz camellia came from the Goto Islands in Japan could not be confirmed either.

literature

  • Mustafa Haikal : The camellia forest: The history of a German gardening , Sandstein Verlag, Dresden 2010, ISBN 978-3-942422-17-8
  • Stephanie Jäger: The work of the court gardener Carl Adolf Terscheck in Dresden . In: Communications of the Landesverein Sächsischer Heimatschutz 1 (1995), pp. 31–35: Ill.

Web links

Commons : Pillnitzer Camellia  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Stephanie Jäger: The work of the court gardener Carl Adolf Terscheck in Dresden . In: Communications of the Landesverein Sächsischer Heimatschutz 1 (1995), pp. 31–35: Ill.
  2. ↑ The most curious and at the same time the widest rail vehicle in the world .
  3. ↑ Kümmel, F. (1981). The oldest camellias in the German Democratic Republic . In: The American Camellia Yearbook , No. 36, pp. 164-175.
  4. ↑ Scientists confirm: Pillnitz camellia comes from Japan. in: Sächsische Zeitung (Pirna edition) of May 7, 2008, p. 6.
  5. ↑ P. Vela, JL Couselo, C. Salinero, M. González, MJ Sainz: Morpho botanic and molecular characterization of the oldest camellia trees in Europe . In: International Camellia Journal , No. 41, 2009, pp. 51-57.
  6. ↑ T. Heitkam, S. Petrasch, F. Zakrzewski, A. Kögler T. Wenke, S. Wanke, T. Schmidt: Next-generation sequencing reveals differentially amplified tandem repeats as a major genome component of Northern Europe's oldest Camellia japonica . In: Chromosome Research No. 23, 2015, pp. 791-806.

Coordinates: 51 ° 0 ′ 42.3 "  N , 13 ° 52 ′ 10.6"  E