1784- Campomolino, Italy August 16, 1863) was the greatest camellia

Camellia

Camellia, the camellias, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are found in eastern and southern Asia, from the Himalaya east to Korea and Indonesia. There are 100–250 described species, with some controversy over the exact number...

 scholar of the nineteenth century. He was born and died in Campolino, Italy. He was ordained priest in the Seminario Vescovile di Ceneda. He lived and worked for circa 40 years in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, where he had his own greenhouses. The first edition of his book, published in 1837, began to establish a formal classification system for camellia varieties. He was cofounder (with 400 others) and vice-president of the Société Royale d'Horticulture de Paris the predecessor of the Société nationale d'horticulture de France. He is remembered by the Camellia Berlesiana and Camellia Campomolendina which bear his name.

External links and sources

• Monography of the Genus Camellia Or: An Essay on Its Culture, Description ... by Lorenzo Berlèse, Boston, J. Breck & company, 1838, 102 pages (full text at google books)
• Iconographie du genre Camellia, en trois tomes, (Paris, 1841-1843)

• L'abate L. Berlese biopage in Italian