Searching
for century camellias
on the Pisan Hills
In the sphere of conducted investigations in Tuscany,
for account of Italian Camellias Society, with the aim of a census
and eventual acknowledgment of cultivars ascending to the 19th century,
I met, in the inner part of the Pisa Province, by signalling of Dr.
Antonio Cambi, some noticeable collections of Camelia japonica,
plant of Asian origin, surely ascending to the 19th century. In that
period, as generally in Italy, the taste for the exotic allowed the
camellia to enter inside the romantic gardens, mostly for its high
grade of adaptation to climates and situations different from the
original. In facts the Camellia is an acidophil plant, and for this
it prefers grounds with acid reaction and with no limestone.
The situation on the Pisan Hills is so different, being the grounds
formerly with alkaline reaction. But the clever and expert gardeners
of the past they knew perfectly as act, planting camellias in over
sited grounds and well drained, avoiding to cumulate the calcium salts.
Fore more they posted up the camellias towards the North or the East,
having yet verified the risk they could suffer for an excessive prolonged
exposition to the sun . In several occasions they put in hollows the
ground, improving the substratum in the strict neighbourhood of the
plants and enriching it by organic substances and sand.
The Camellia more remarkable from an historic point of view, it was
with any doubt the cultivar "Ridolfi" , still now in a perfect estate,
beside the wall of the customer house, in Tripalle, near Villa
Priami, now Villa Lang. This fine variety with peony like flower,
white with red and pink stripes, it was described in the Bibbiani
catalogue yet from the 1848. It was obtained in 1843 just in Bibbiani,
near Florence, from the gardener Luigi Montagni and it was dedicated
to the Landlord and collector the Marquise Cosimo Ridolfi. This Camellia
is also reported in the complete iconography from the Abbott Berlese.
A nice collection we found at the Poggione Farm in Fauglia, where
there are still present seven ancient cultivar, from which a "Centifolia
Alba", several miniatures and some simplex ones. One time the farm
was a Cassuto Property , than Del Gratta Property. Recently they were
planted a lot of new young camellias by the actual owners.
In the atrium of the Villa sited in Poggio alla Farnia, in the last
month of April, it was on stage a first exhibition of ancient camellias.
An other particular collection is that found in Lari, in that which
one time it was the Palmieri Silvatici Villa, with the presence of
more than 15 camellia kinds from which the cultivar "Cliviana", the
"Anemoniflora rosea", Rubra and Rosea simplex ones and one "Alba plena".
Unfortunately it was not possible to find a specimen of cultivar "Carlotta
Papudoff" in Usigliano, in the homonymous Villa, yet Castelli Property.
The Camellia was achieved by the Leghorn collector Malenchini and
it sourced in me a lot of interest because dedicated to the sister
of the wife of an ancestors of mine. I hoped by finding it, to achieved
more notices . This search will anyway go on in all over the Province,
hoping that in the meantime, the human negligence and the "modern
civility" they cancel the traces for ever.
Guido Cattolica - Responsible for Tuscany for the Italian
Camellia Society
By courtesy of Associazione
culturale La Rondine
PAGINA
INIZIALE