Bogue Chitto’s Lois Cochrane was raised by a Camellia-lovingpeople. She’s been to Camellia shows every year since her birth in1957. She used the flower as her subject in a grade school scienceproject. She has the flowers growing at her home.

And she still gets excited about the Brookhaven CamelliaSociety’s annual Camellia Show.

“I love it. It’s a small community of people who have plantsthey care about and love,” Cochrane said. “It’s a beautifulshow.”

Cochrane and other fans of the winter flower from far and widetoured through the Brookhaven Recreation Department Saturdayafternoon to marvel at one of the South’s largest collection ofCamellia blooms at the 48th annual Brookhaven Camellia Show.Growers from Pensacola to Mobile to Brookhaven brought in 972blooms of various varieties, filling the big concrete room with amultitude of reds, pinks and whites.

It was an impressive showing, especially considering the burstsof cold air and ice that has caused Camellia bushes around LincolnCounty to remain tightly closed this winter.

“This has been a terrific show. With the kind of weather we’vehad around here, I was concerned we’d have very few blooms,” saidBrookhaven Camellia Society member Homer Richardson. “The peoplewho brought blooms in from outside the county made up for it.”

The show was filled with beautiful wide blooms grown toperfection in greenhouses, but the number of outdoor-grown bloomsfrom Lincoln County was small.

Only two local outdoor growers placed blooms among the 61flowers moved to the winners table – Shirley Estes, whose BlackLace Variegated won Best Medium or Small Reticulata; and Mike andGeri Jinks, whose deep-red Professor Sargent won the Don EstesAward for best Lincoln County bloom.

“It was the only bloom we entered. It was the only bloom wehad,” said Geri Jinks, adding that her husband clipped the bloomand brought it indoors last week when sleet began falling.

Even though the number of blooms was down, the number ofvisitors remained steady. Around 300 people showed up on the firstday of the Camellia show, including U.S. District Judge RogerVinson, who recently ruled the national health care reform actunconstitutional.

Vinson, a former president of the American Camellia Society andjudge at Saturday’s show, departed Brookhaven before it opened tothe public at 2 p.m.

Others hung around.

“I didn’t even know this show existed. I was not disappointed,”said Columbia’s Beth Pierce, who found herself the master of a yardfull of Camellias when she bought her house. “Now I’m able to namethe ones I have in my yard.”

Bogue Chitto’s Mack and Wilda Bezet, who moved in from Louisianain 2000 and just built a new home, came with a notepad and pen torecord the Camellia types they liked. They’ll be using that listwhen they landscape the new yard.

“Everyone here is so friendly and enthusiastic, and there’s somuch knowledge it’s almost overwhelming,” Mack Bezet said.

The Brookhaven Camellia Show continues Sunday from noon until 4p.m. at the recreation department on Highway 51.