United States / Grow / tea-oil-plant

tea-oil-plant (Camellia oleifera)
Photo: no rights reserved (CC0), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

tea-oil-plant

Camellia oleifera · Theaceae · all Camellia records · also called Tea-oil camellia · Wikipedia

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Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Form
tree
Mature height
~20 ft
Light
Part sun
Rated in
Global; eastern US
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Global; eastern US

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in DC, DE, MD, NJ, OH, PA, WV.
USDA hardiness
Only uncertain or inapplicable hardiness rows are cited; no primary zone is projected.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Listed without a rating (11)
Corroboration (11 rows from 1 source)
  • FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

    11 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.

    • Primary study Liu2013: Liu, M., Yi, L., Yu, S., Zhou, G., Jiang, H., & Li, X. (2013). Combustibility of fresh leaves of 26 forest species in China. Journal of Tropical Forest Science, 25, 528-536.

      Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site Liu2013-1; sampling ND.

      • “time to flaming (s): 41”

        FLAMITS record 7045; Ignitability measurement.

      • Shared measurement context: Combustibility measurement.

        • “maximum energy flux (kW/m²): 35.54”

          FLAMITS record 7071.

        • “mass loss rate (g/s): 1.06”

          FLAMITS record 7097.

        • “calorific value (kcal/kg): 812.08”

          FLAMITS record 7123.

        • “total heat release (MJ/m²): 1.46”

          FLAMITS record 7149.

        • “smoke release rate (m²/s): 0.69”

          FLAMITS record 7201.

        • “smoke specific extinction area (m²/kg): 170.41”

          FLAMITS record 7227.

        • “energy flux (kW/m²): 10.52”

          FLAMITS record 7253.

      • “total smoke release (m²/m²): 131.33”

        FLAMITS record 7175; Consumability measurement.

    • Primary study Tian2003: Tian, X., Shu, L., & Zhang, X. (2003). Study on the influence of microstructure of tree’s twig and leaf on combustibility. Scientia Silvae Sinicae, 39, 84–88.

      Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site Tian2003-1; sampling ND.

      • “time to flaming (s): 61”

        FLAMITS record 18694; Ignitability measurement.

      • “energy flux (kW/m²): 82”

        FLAMITS record 18704; Combustibility measurement.

Fire-resistant trees instead

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia ·

Camellia oleifera (Tea-oil camellia). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/camellia-oleifera/. Last verified 2026-08-23.