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Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Tokyo
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A camellia-leaf fossil was found in 1978 in a Middle-to-Late Jōmon layer at Shimotakabora. Now kept at Oshima Park’s Camellia Museum, it shows camellias were growing on the island thousands of years ago.
Camellias here rely mainly on birds for pollination. The Shichito white-eye, an Izu Islands subspecies, sips the flowers’ nectar as their stamens brush pollen onto its head.
Some Oshima camellias open in September; others flower into May—nearly 9 months of scattered blooms, not one big peak. Tokyo’s Oshima Park office explains that flowering gradually helps when birds are the pollinators.
The camellia grove near Oshima Park’s Camellia Museum was once used to gather seeds for oil. Across the island, people also established camellia woods by driving camellia trunks into the ground like stakes.
About 180 camellia seeds are needed to make 60 mL of oil, and a tree takes roughly 20–30 years to produce abundant fruit. The forest’s oil crop is measured in patient seasons, not quick harvests.
In autumn, islanders gathered camellia fruits in baskets, opened the ripe shells and spread the seeds on mats to dry in the sun. The seasonal work helped turn the forest’s harvest into a local oil industry.
On Izu Oshima, some windbreaks were planted in grids to shelter fields from winds arriving from different directions. Fast-growing Oshima cherry gave early cover while slower camellias grew; the camellias eventually became the main trees.
Camellia’s dense wood made charcoal that burned hot and lasted well, with little smoke or sparking. In the Edo period, firewood was also among the goods sent as tribute from the Izu Islands.
Oshima-bushi, an island folk song, gives the native single-flowered camellia a playful boast: it has no wish to bloom double. The wild yabu-tsubaki’s red flower has 5 petals.
In the early Shōwa era, artists helped turn camellia seeds into souvenirs: people polished them, carved small designs and added color. The technique spread among islanders as a local craft.
Porous volcanic ash drains Oshima’s 2,500–3,000 mm of annual rain quickly. The local geopark says a camellia reaches 1 m in trunk circumference in about 80 years here, compared with often 100 or more on the mainland.
