<p><i>Camellia nitidissima</i> is a kind of endangered plants with important ornamental and medicinal value. As wild resources are gradually depleted, cultivated plants become the main source of <i>Camellia nitidissima</i> crude drug in the market, and this species has been introduced into many areas in Guangxi and other provinces of China from its original habitats. The introduction and cultivation of medicinal plants may cause changes in their chemical ingredients and thus lead to alterations in their quality. In the present study, the correlation between active ingredient and environmental factors was analyzed on samples of <i>C. nitidissima</i> with consistent germplasm resources from 14 different growing areas, so as to identify changes in chemical composition of introduced <i>C. nitidissima</i> individuals and key environmental factors contributing to these changes. Our results showed that both the types and contents of medicinal active ingredients in <i>C. nitidissima</i> were influenced by many climatic and soil factors. For different active ingredients, the main influencing environmental factors differed, and the content of each active ingredient was impacted by multiple environmental factors. Cluster analysis based on chemical composition of samples from 14 growing areas and rankings by the content of main functional ingredients revealed that both the clustering result of growing areas and the content of functional ingredients were not necessarily associated with geographical locations, implying that the change of microenvironments may result in alteration in the type and content of active ingredients in <i>C. nitidissima</i>.</p>