The world outside my front window is brown. Brown grass. Brown bare-branchy tree trunks. Brown driveway. A few stray brown leaves scurry with the wind across the ground. Brown house across the street.
The view into the small side yard seen from above my kitchen sink is quite a contrast. A beautiful, unabashedly blooming camellia grows there. Large green leaves and huge fuchsia flowers fill the frame of my window when I stare that way, which I often do. I spend quite a bit of time in my kitchen, but this week has been even more filled with kitchen sink wash time. Wash hands. Wash dishes. Wash fruit. Wash vegetables. Wash the good glasses. Wash the fragile snowman cocoa mugs. Wash more dishes. Wash more hands. I’ve been spending a lot of time letting that camellia sink into my eyes over the last few days.
The Collins English Dictionary, 10th online addition defines camellia as follows: any ornamental shrub of the Asian genus Camellia, especially C. japonica, having glossy evergreen leaves and showy rose like flowers usually white, pink or red in color: family Theaceae (also called: japonica) .
Apparently the camellia was named in 1753 from a Latinized form of G.J. Kamel (1661-1706). He was a Moravian Jesuit missionary who introduced the plant to Europe. I was surprised to find the camellia to be imported from Asia so long ago since it feels like such a part of traditional southern yards to me. The flowery plant is abundant in South Carolina landscaping. The family who owned my house for forty years before my family must have loved the showy rose like flowers because we have several camellia plants in our yard. They always catch me off guard when they burst to bloom in December.
Camellia
Camellia missed the memo of proper plant ways
required of attire during long nights and short days.
Southern lady immigrant from Asia’s distant shores
shows present bud to bloom in Carolina outdoors.
Seems not she to know her shiny abundance green
takes territory of lighted Christmas pines tall and lean.
Coquette puts on her finest flashy pink and red
despite other winter plants pretending to be dead.
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