A few years ago I realised that the Mount Edgcumbe plants of Camellia sasanqua ‘Fukuzutsumi’ and Camellia oleifera were in fact the same and that neither name was correct. It led eventually to the name Camellia sasanqua ‘Tago-no-tsuki’ and to a back story riddled with gaps which suggested the variety had been imported into the UK around 1920 by The Yokohama Nursery. For a hundred years or more it had been growing in gardens and sold in nurseries as ‘Fukuzutsumi’, ‘Narumigata’, ‘Fragrans’, oleifera and probably other names as well. Very old plants, perhaps originals, have now been relabelled at Leonardslee and Nymans gardens. I wrote about it at some length in 2022.

Last week I attended an event at Trewithen garden in Cornwall, where I was delighted to discover another old specimen of what appeared to be the same cultivar, as well as a couple of young plants that had presumably been propagated from it. Today I went back for a closer look and I am now convinced that it is indeed another venerable specimen of ‘Tago-no-tsuki’. There are actually two old plants, planted against the outside of the walled garden near the house. One is much larger than the other but not necessarily older. The bigger plant has a label reading Camellia sasanqua, with no cultivar name.

The two younger plants are in much better condition than the old specimens; one is labelled Camellia hiemalis ‘Chansonette’, the other only seemed to have a number .

The big specimen is 6.8m tall and 7.8m wide, with a girth at 1m of 90cm. It is in reasonable health, especially considering that it is growing in a border less than a metre wide with a brick wall to one side and a much used path to the other. In its past it has been hard pruned to the height of the wall and perhaps again around a metre above the wall.

Even the smaller tree is around 6m tall, though far less spreading than the bigger specimen. It is in quite poor health, rather thin with yellowish foliage.

Last week’s frost had probably seen off a better flower display than any of the plants is now sporting but one of the younger bushes shows what a great variety this is. For my money it as good as any single white sasanqua camellia I know of and a good deal better than several of them.