The pollination biology of Camellia oleifera, an important plant producing edible oil, was studied during 2007 and 2008 in Hunan Province, central south China. It blooms during October to January and the flowering period usually lasts about 20 days for single plant and 4-5 days for single flower. The volume of nectar, containing sugar ((23.13±103)%) and 17 kinds of amino acid (1.73%), is (145.40±24.89)μL per flower (n=30). Andrena camellia and Colletes gigas (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) are the effective pollinators and the pollination efficiency of the A. camellia is higher than that of the Colletes gigas. Flies and butterflies are casual visitors. Breeding experiments showed that C. oleifera is primarily self-incompatible with a significant difference in reproductive success between self-pollination and cross-pollination. There is no apomixis and autonomous self-pollination, so the pollination, fruiting and seeding of this species depends on pollinators. The result of hand cross-pollination of C. oleifera showed that when pollen is supplemented, seed number increases but fruit production remains the same. The nectar characteristics that we found in C. oleifera, i.e. high volume nectar and dilute sugar content, suggest the bird-pollination syndrome but the phylogenetic position of C. oleifera in the genus Camellia does not allow us to interpret how this syndrome could have evolved in this species.