camellia’s story. Each man was independently growing, developing and selling camellias through their nursery businesses. From their inspired and tenacious work sprang many named varieties and Alabama’s still-flourishing nursery industry. They also helped make camellias a must-have plant for gardens in the state, region and nation, including in the now world-famous Theodore, Ala., garden of Bessie and Walter Bellingrath.
champions began lobbying to replace the goldenrod, which had been named Alabama’s state flower in 1927 (the same day the yellowhammer became our official state bird), with their favorite flower. The first camellia bill, sponsored by Sen. Jimmy Faulkner of Baldwin Robert Rubel of Longview Nursery in Mobile once shipped five County in 1949, failed. But the carailcars of huge old camellias from the Gulf Coast to estates in mellia camp was undeterred. They the Charleston area, as shown in this photo inscribed “Shipped Nov 29, 1930.” touted the attributes of camellias, PHOTO COURTESY ALABAMA CAMELLIA SOCIETY including their beauty, ease of cultivation and tourism potential. A June 4, 1959, Alabama Journal article reported that, as the Camellia cities Legislature’s Conservation Committee met to vote on moving Though camellias are an iconic plant of Mobile, Greenville, the bill forward for a full vote, they had company – “the camellia Ala., is where the effort to make the camellia our Alabama state crowd, made up primarily of formidable-looking women.” flower began, a story that brought on another bit of conflict. Later that month, the bill passed and was signed into law by According to historical records, after overhearing a visiting Gov. John Patterson on Aug. 26, after which Patterson’s wife, garden editor from a national magazine comment on the large Mary Joe McGowin Patterson, who had connections in Greennumber of handsome and old (some dated back to the mid-1800s) ville, reportedly said, “Good, I can go home tonight!” In 1999, to clear up any confusion about which camellia was the camellias in Greenville, a local newspaper editor began using the state flower, the Legislature passed another bill designating Camelslogan “The Camellia City” on his paper’s masthead. Soon city officials and civic and business folk (including a local dairy that used lia japonica L. as the official Alabama camellia species. (At the same pictures of camellias on its milk cartons) also adopted the slogan. time, perhaps to quell some of the goldenrod angst, legislators also The camellia was named Greenville’s official city flower in the named another native flower, the oak-leaf hydrangea, as Alabama’s late 1930s, and is also where, in 1948, the Alabama Camellia Sostate wildflower.) In 2014, the Legislature also proclaimed Jan. 7 of ciety was founded. A year later, those Greenville-based camellia each year as Alabama’s “Camellia Day,” a date picked to coincide
This camellia, “Herme,” is planted at the Alabama Capitol and originated in the 1840s in Japan. PHOTO COURTESY ALABAMA CAMELLIA SOCIETY
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