Abstract
BackgroundThe oil-tea tree (Camellia oleifera Abel.) is a woody tree species that produces edible oil in the seed. C. oleifera oil has high nutritional value and is also an important raw material for medicine and cosmetics. In China, due to the uncertainty on maturity period and oil synthesis mechanism of many C. oleifera cultivars, growers may harvest fruits prematurely, which could not maximize fruit and oil yields. In this study, our objective was to explore the mechanism and differences of oil synthesis between two Camellia oleifera cultivars for a precise definition of the fruit ripening period and the selection of appropriate cultivars.ResultsThe results showed that ‘Huashuo’ had smaller fruits and seeds, lower dry seed weight and lower expression levels of fatty acid biosynthesis genes in July. We could not detect the presence of oil and oil bodies in ‘Huashuo’ seeds until August, and oil and oil bodies were detected in ‘Huajin’ seeds in July. Moreover, ‘Huashuo’ seeds were not completely blackened in October with up to 60.38% of water and approximately 37.98% of oil in seed kernels whose oil content was much lower than normal mature seed kernels. The oil bodies in seed endosperm cells of ‘Huajin’ were always higher than those of ‘Huashuo’ from July to October.ConclusionOur results confirmed that C. oleifera ‘Huashuo’ fruits matured at a lower rate compared to ‘Huajin’ fruits and that ‘Huajin’ seeds entered the oil synthesis period earlier than ‘Huashuo’ seeds. Moreover, ‘Huashuo’ fruits did not mature during the Frost’s Descent period (October 23–24 each year).
Highlights
The oil-tea tree (Camellia oleifera Abel.) is a woody tree species that produces edible oil in the seed
C. oleifera ‘Huajin’ has a compact crown and dark green leaves with a rich luster and the fruit is a capsule with an oval shape and an emerald green fruit color (Fig. 1C and D)
The fruits of C. oleifera ‘Huajin’ were more mature than those of C. oleifera ‘Huashuo’ at the same developmental stages based on their darker seeds (Fig. 1E, F, G, H, I, J, K and L)
Summary
The oil-tea tree (Camellia oleifera Abel.) is a woody tree species that produces edible oil in the seed. The oil-tea tree (Camellia oleifera Abel.) is an evergreen shrub of Camellia in Theaceae [1,2,3] This species is widely distributed in the hilly areas of southern China, and it is one of the four major woody oil plants in the world, along with the olive tree (Olea europaea), oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), and coconut palm (Cocos nucifera). The tea oil extracted from C. oleifera seeds is an edible oil called ‘eastern olive oil’ which has high nutritional value and health care functions [6, 7]. It protects the human cardiovascular system and stomach, and provides an important raw material for some high-end cosmetics [11,12,13]
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