Martinii Believed Extinct

Anonymous, May 1852, The Florist, 2:89-91, Colour pl. No description. The Florist, Fruitist and Garden Miscellany,1852,new series, Vol.II,No.XVII, p.89: "It is so seldom that we get a new camellia in any class superior to already existing kinds, that we consider ourselves fortunate in being able to present our readers this month with the beautiful variety which forms the subject of our plate. It is one of a good many seedlings raised by Messrs, Jackson of Kingston from C. Carswelliana, and flowered for the first time in 1847 (quite a small weakly plant). Messrs, Jackson thought it of very promising character and worked some plants of it; from one of which the flowers sent to Mr. Andrews to figure was cut. Its chief merit we consider to be its nearer approch to scarlet than any Camellia of good form yet out. As regards its name, it was called Martinii in compliment to William Byam Martin, Esq. of Bank Grove, Kingston, Surrey, a liberal patron of horticulture, and the possessor of a magnificent specimen of Camellia reticulata, the finest in the Kingdom we believe, and most probably not surpassed even in its own country, with the vigour and density a common laurel. Last year it formed 6200 flower-buds, 3000 of which were picked off by thinning, and the remaining 3200 produced their handsome blossoms, some of them measuring ten inches in diameter." Origi­nated in England. (Believed extinct.)