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| The flower in white color is from camellia oleifera seed, bloom from October to November of each year when seeds of last year are mature. The flowers will fade at the same time when all seeds been picked up, going across Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn, becoming seeds. | ||||||
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| Next year's October and November, the seeds are mature after one years' growth. Mature seeds are in brown color instead of green. Camellia trees are full of seeds, so branch bend for these heavy fruits. Mature seeds should be picked up or it will split and fall. | ||||||
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Basket for loading camellia seeds |
Prepare to pick camellia seeds |
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Picking camellia seeds |
Climb up branch to pick seed in high place |
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| It is time to pick camellia seeds when they become light brown. Picking seeds is a great hard job. Some camellia trees are about 5-10 meters high, people can not reach it on ground. Local farmer don't have high-tech machine, they usually climb up camellia tree to pick the seeds in high branch. | ||||||
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| Tea seeds will be loaded in bigger basket when the smaller basket is full. One pair bigger baskets can load about eighty kilograms. Farmer shoulders a pair baskets one time go about five kilometer from camellia oleifera plantation to destination. There is no machine can do this job because of bad condition road in high mountain of one thousand altitude. Comparing picking seeds, shouldering seeds is harder as it need people with strong-bodied and great strength. Nowadays, most youth don't like to do this job as it is too hard to be done. | ||||||
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| Exposure under the sun, Camellia seeds dehisce and inner seeds come out. | ||||||
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| The nutlets continue exposure under the sun. | ||||||
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| Inner seeds and nutlet. One inner seeds contain one nutlet. Nutlet is rich of oil. Usually one kilogram nutlet can be extracted oil about 300-500ml. | ||||||
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