Augusto Leal de Gourela Pinto
A nineteenth-century Portuguese japonica whose carmine blooms take on a rare blue hue in certain microclimates — RHS Award of Merit, 1958.
One of the great heritage japonicas from Portugal's golden age of camellia breeding, this cultivar is a white-margined form of 'Grand Sultan' (invalidly listed as 'Mathotiana'). Each petal carries a very narrow white border over bright carmine heavily flushed with lavender — and remarkably, the blooms can take on a blue hue in certain microclimates. Registered circa 1904 and honored with the RHS Award of Merit in 1958, it appears in Urquhart's 1956 The Camellia and in RHS publications. Known under numerous orthographic abbreviations including 'Augusto Pinto' and 'Augusto Leal.' Source: International Camellia Register.