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<i>Camellia oleifera</i> Abel., which produces fruits of high comprehensive utilization value, is an important woody oil tree in China. ZEITLUPE (ZTL) is a blue light receptor and clock component protein that is involved in various physiological and biochemical processes. However, the expression pattern and function of <i>C. oleifera</i> ZTL (CoZTL) remain unclear. In this study, the coding sequence of the <i>CoZTL</i> gene was isolated and the protein function was explored using bioinformatics and expression analyses and heterologous expression techniques. The results showed that the CoZTL protein was highly conserved during evolution and was on the same branch of the evolutionary tree as the ZTL proteins from <i>Ipomoea nil</i> and <i>Nicotiana attenuata</i>. <i>CoZTL</i> was mainly expressed in the fruit shells and stems of <i>C. oleifera</i>, and its expression level fluctuated greatly during flower bud development. Transgenic <i>CoZTL</i>-overexpressing <i>Arabidopsis</i> plants showed delayed flowering under long-day conditions as well as light-dependent promotion of hypocotyl elongation. Furthermore, yeast two-hybrid library screening revealed that seven <i>C. oleifera</i> proteins (CoAAT, Coβ-GAL, CoLAT52-like, CoCAR4-like, CoAO, CoUQCC1, and CoADF 2) interacted with CoZTL. Our results indicate that CoZTL plays an important role in <i>C. oleifera</i> flowering and hypocotyl growth.