The myth of the birth of Camellia.

About the origin of the Camellia on earth, you can read a wonderful legend from Mantegazza in his tales of flowers.

The God of love, Cupid, got bored with the love of the goddesses of Olympus and earth women, and turned to his mother Venus for help. Venus said: "If there is no woman on earth that you like, then go to another world, to another planet."

Cupid flew to Saturn. There he saw a lake, a clear, blue lake, the banks of which were strewn with snow that glittered like silver. Everything was as white as snow, and even the ferns and palms were as if made of ice, and sparkled and shone with all the colors of the rainbow, as if showered with the dust of millions of tiny diamonds.

And among the icy rocks sat beautiful women with snow-white bodies, silvery hair, and blue eyes that glittered like sapphires. They sang in wonderful voices: "Thank you, Lord, for giving us a body of ice. Ice calms all desires and calms passions…»

And in vain did Cupid shoot his arrows at these lovely women. None of them struck their hearts: all remained as cold to him as ice.

In despair, he rushed to Venus, exclaiming:

"Mother, where did you send me? Here everything is made of ice: flowers and the very souls of women; they are not able to love..."

Venus exclaimed:

Calm down, these insensitive creatures are not worthy to be women, let them come down to earth and turn into flowers!

And so, these lovely but soulless creatures turned into camellias.