Camellia + ‘Daisy Eagleson,’ a Graft Chimera of Camellia Sasanqua and C. Japonica

We have described a new, distinct camellia cultivar, Camellia + ‘Daisy Eagleson’ (Byrd ex Meyer), found on a rootstock of hexaploid C. sasanqua Thunb. ‘Maiden's Blush’ on which a scion of diploid C. japonica L. had been grafted. The new cultivar is a graft chimera with epidermal tissue from C. sasanqua and the internal tissue from C. japonica . Many characters expressed and measured at the cellular or tissue’ level showed complete independence in the chimera. These included chromsome number, anthocyanin synthesis, p H, cell size, and fragrance. Some characters expressed at the organ or whole plant level showed an interaction between the two components. These included floral morphology, leaf size, time of bloom, bud hardiness, and growth habit. One entirely new character we found was the presence of 6–8 styles in the chimeral flowers in contrast to the three styles typical of the component species. While the two components grew together in apparent harmonious and stable fashion, we have recovered each of the pure, homogeneous component cultivars a number of times from tissue replacement and displacement phenomena in the shoot and as adventitious shoots from roots. ‘Daisy Eagleson’ is only the third, fully‐authenticated, woody graft chimera.