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Botanical Name: Stewartia pseudocamellia
Common Name: Japanese Stewartia
Origin: Japan
Locations: CNE, CNW, CSE
Notable Feature: A highly ornamental, flowering tree providing year round interest with its outstanding bark as well as it summer flowering, camellia-like flowers.
Habit: A multi-stemmed, deciduous tree with a rounded, columnar form growing to 40 feet tall with a 20-foot spread. Slow growing and makes an excellent specimen tree.
Flower: In mid-summer, glamorous, white, 2 to 2 ½” wide, camellia-like flowers open in succession over many weeks. The perfect (bisexual) flowers are broadly cup-shaped with 5 to 6 petals and a central boss of showy, orange-yellow anthers.
Fruit: A woody, brown capsule, triangular in shape with four or five angles, persistent on the trees but not very showy.
Foliage: Alternate leaves, 2 to 3 ½” long have finely serrated edges, bronzy purple in spring, dark green in summer and red-orange in fall.
Bark: Stunning bark that exfoliates in strips of gray, orange, and reddish brown once the trunk attains a diameter of 2 to 3 inches.
Interesting Fact: The species name, pseudocamellia, means false camellia. The genera Stewartia, Camellia, and Franklinia are all members of the Tea Family, Theaceae, and consequently they all have similar flowers.