stuntgirl
Newly Registered
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2006 12:40 pm
Location: Hertfordshire

Camellia Fruit

hello

not sure if in right place..

I have just moved to a new house with a very mature well kept garden.
This is the first garden I have had.

The Camellia plant/bush/tree??? has fruit on it which looking online you get some kind of tea tree oil??

Is this right?
Can I do extract the oil from the seeds?
I prob need alot of seeds, would you think? :?

just curious

femlow
Senior Member
Posts: 127
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2006 9:37 pm
Location: 5a - Maine

Tea oil (not to be confuse with tea tree oil) comes from Camellia sinensis, more commonly known as the tea plant. This is also where tea comes from (hence the name :wink:). Its highly likely that you don't have a camellia sinensis, but rather a different camellia, however its not impossible. Most camellias that are planted in gardens are planted for their big flowers, but camellia sinensis has much smaller white flowers with many prominent yellow stamen. [url]https://www.logees.com/images/R2005-Camellia_sinensis.JPG[/url] has a nice picture of the plant. If this happens to be your plant, then many congratulations, you have yourself a tea plant (I've been looking for one for quite some time with no luck). The seeds are used for making tea oil, but you will require a very huge amount of seeds to make any usable amount of oil, not to mention you will need equipment to press the seeds to get the oil out. I would suggest buying it at a store. It's a whole lot easier and probably cheaper too. If you wanted though, and you do have a tea plant, then you could dry the leaves to make tea (this would also require a good bit of work, but not nearly as much as pressing oil out of the seeds).

Tea tree oil comes from Melaleuca alternifolia, a type of paperbark found in Australia, which is of no relation to the actual tea plant at all...

fem

opabinia51
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 4659
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 5:58 pm
Location: Victoria, BC

Thanks femlow! It's nice to see another botanical enthusiast out there.



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