which we had not an opportunity of inspecting for descrip- 

 tion, after Mr. Edwards had drawn it. It is of quick 

 growth, attaining the height of about 8 feet, smaller in all 

 parts than japanica, but larger thanTnEA, with round branches 

 of a brownish red colour, deciduously villous, pliant, and 

 weak. The number of petals is very variable, as well as 

 the indentation of their circumference. We have extracted 

 the following notice of it from Sir George Staunton's ac- 

 count of Lord Macartney's embassy to China. " A plant 

 " very like the tea flourished, at this time, on the sides and 

 " the very tops of mountains, where the soil consisted of 

 " little more than fragments of stone, crumbled into a sort 

 u of coarse earth by the joint action of the sun and rain. 

 " The Chinese call this plant cha-whaw, or flower of tea, on 

 " account of the resemblance of one to the other, and be- 

 u cause its petals, as well as the entire flowers of arabian 

 " Jessamine (the subject of the first article of the present 

 " work), are sometimes mixed anions the teas, in order to 



" increase their fragrance. This plant, the cha-wbaw, is 

 " the Camellia sasanqua of the botanists, and yields a nut, 

 " from whence is expressed an esculent oil, equal to the 

 " best which comes from Florence. It is cultivated on this 

 account in vast abundance; and is particularly valuable 

 from the facility of its culture, in situations fit for little 



.. 



(C 



" else." We cannot help suspecting that the Thea oleosa 

 of Loureiro, which he tells us grows wild about Can- 

 ton, is the same plant, although he calls its peduncles three- 

 flowered, probably meaning that they grow three together; 

 a circumstance that does not square with Thunberg's ac- 

 count of Sasanqua, nor with the figure in Sir George Staun- 



ton's work, nor with the plant at Mr. Griffin's; yet we 



were told, that at Sir Joseph Banks's, two and three flowers 

 were certainly produced from the axils of some of the leaves. 

 Loureiro says the oil is used for lamps, as well as for culi- 

 nary purposes; but that it is inferior to olive-oil. The plant 

 belongs to the greenhouse, and will soon be common ; but 

 is far inferior to japonica in beauty. Thunberg says that the 



chinese women use a decoction of the leaves to wash their 

 hair. 





