Camellia Glasshouse, Kurume World Camellia Museum (久留米市世界のつばき館 ツバキ展示施設)

The northern foot of the Minō mountains has produced ornamental trees and nursery stock since the Edo period, and the Kusano district is known for its old camellia trees and its long tradition of camellia growing. To build on that heritage, the city of Kurume completed the Kurume World Camellia Museum (Kurume-shi Sekai no Tsubaki-kan) in March 2014, a facility intended to collect and show the camellias of the world, beginning with the wild species that the city presents as the origin of camellias.

The museum follows an earlier municipal project, the Kurume Camellia Garden (Kurume Tsubaki-en), opened in March 2008 about 400 m away on some three hectares and devoted to garden cultivars. The new facility complements that collection of varieties with a glasshouse dedicated to botanical species, from Japan but also from Taiwan, China and Vietnam.

Today the site presents itself as a rest stop open to all at the northern foot of the Minō range. It also serves as an exhibition space and has shown a 1969 facsimile of the Chinka zufu, a book of 720 camellia plates held by the Imperial Household Agency.

The municipal complex has three parts. The glass camellia display house covers 324 m²; the city describes it as an open interior about 9 m high. An information and exchange building of 207 m² receives visitors, and a 632 m² camellia garden lies in the open air around the buildings.

The interior of the glasshouse is arranged on geographical rather than botanical lines. The plants are divided into five zones matching the main areas of origin of wild camellias: Japan, Taiwan, south-western China, south-eastern China and Vietnam. Visitors thus move from one area of origin to the next, which makes it easy to compare related species from different countries.

The glasshouse works as a companion to the Kurume Camellia Garden about 400 m away, whose three hectares are given over to garden varieties.

The glasshouse shows more than a hundred wild camellia species (110 according to the city), planted as 160 specimens, out of the more than 250 species the genus is said to include worldwide. The Japanese zone includes yabu-tsubaki and several of its regional forms, yuki-tsubaki, ringo-tsubaki and Okinawa-sazanka; the Taiwanese zone Taiwan-sazanka and Hōzan-tsubaki; the Chinese zones kinkacha, yucha, chanoki, Grantham-tsubaki and Hong Kong-tsubaki.

The 632 m² outdoor garden holds about fifty varieties according to the city, including specimens more than 80 years old of the cultivars Tarō-kaja and Shibori-rōgetsu. According to the official site, flowering runs from September to June depending on the variety.

The glasshouse is visited together with the small information building and the garden, which takes about half an hour. The richest season runs from autumn to spring, when wild species and garden varieties bloom in turn. The visit pairs naturally with the Kurume Camellia Garden about 400 m away, which holds some 500 varieties and 2,000 camellias along with 200 azalea varieties. The northern foot of the Minō mountains, known for its nurseries, makes a pleasant walk between the two sites.