AZORES, 2003, tea plant, Scott 476
INDONESIA, 1960, tea plant, Scott 498
PAPUA NEW GUINEA, 1967, tea plant, Scott 243

  
MALAWI, 1989, tea plantation, Scott 557
CHINA, 1997, tea tree, Scott 2756
NEPAL, 2003. tea garden, Scott 731

   
BANGLADESH, 1983, tea picking, Scott 219
CAMEROON, 1973, tea picking, Scott 560
MALAWI, 1983, tea picking, Scott 411

Most people do not usually make an immediate connection between the tasteful tea they drink and the beautiful camellias with which they decorate their homes. But both are of the same genus, Camellia, namedby Charles von Linnaeus for a Jesuit brother Georg Josef Kamel. One species of Camellia, C. sinensis, is the source of tea (whether black or green) and Camellia sinensis has replaced all earlier botanical names. A Portuguese Jesuit, by the way, Fr. Jasper de Cruz, SJ was the first European to experience tea and, writing about it in 1560, to introduce it to his fellow westerners. Other species of Camellia (there are well over a hundred) were brought to Europe in a mistaken attempt to break the Portuguese monopoly on tea, and their ornamental use came to be valued later. Since there are over 100 examples of the Camellia genus on stamps, we present here just a selection. A full listing may be found in our catalog and most are illustrated in the excellent web site Plants on Post Stamps.

Kamel was born in Brno, Moravia, in 1661, entered the Jesuits, and was assigned to the Philippine missions in 1688. There as Jesuit infirmarian and pharmacist he took up botany and became the first plant specialist of the Philippine Islands. He discovered the medicinal properties of what he named St. Ignatius Bean (Strychnos ignatii) to honor the founder of his order. The St. Ignatius Bean is known today as a source of strychnine. Kamel's findings were published in Europe under the Latin form of his name, Camellius, and they so impressed the great Swedish botanist Charles von Linnaeus that he changed the name of the genus he once called Thea to Camellia in his honor. UNESCO named the 300th anniversary of his death in 2006 among the world's important anniversaries; and many consider Kamel to be the most significant pharmacist of the 17th century.

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