Kara-nishiki (Iwasaki)

Iwasaki, 1828, Honzō Zufu; Kasuya, Kamegorō. 1859, Tsubaki Irohanayose Irotsuki: This flower has many white petals with red marking. Itō, Ko’emon, 1879, Chinkashū: Light pink ground, with red dots and streaks, dotted white. Large double. If these ambiguous descriptions are accepted as applying to the modern culhvar of the name see the following colour plates: Tuyama, 1966, Camellia Cultivars of Japan, pl.193; Andoh, 1971, Tsubaki, Meika no Shōkai to Saibai, pl.80; Encyclopedia of Camellias in Colour, vol.1, 1972, pl.307; Shufu-no-Tomo-sha, 1976, Tsubaki to Sazanka, p.29; Yokoyama & Kirino, 1989, Nihon no Chinka, p.343; Seibundō Shinkōsha, 1979, Senchinshū, p.38: These all show a large semi-double of 16-18, large, rounded, slightly emarginate petals in 2-3 rows with a background of white to pinkish white, variously, finely and densely marked with carmine with peppering, ticks, thin lines and an occasional splash. Leaves are lanceolate-elliptic, mid-green, apex blunt acute, margins ser­rulate. Originated in Kantō, Japan. The different reading ‘Tō-nishiki’ is used as the valid name for a different cultivar from Chūbu. Chinese synonym ‘Tangjin’.