276 PROCEEDINGS OP THE ACADEMY OP 



(The plate accompanying the circular is inscribed, " The Tea- plant of North 

 America Chinese Chah, Assamese Phalop Thea viridis, Linn.") 



There is no equivocation whatever in the preceding paragraphs, nor in the 

 inscription of the plate ! The originators of the American Tea Company pro- 

 claim to the people of the United States "that they have discovered the Chi- 

 nese Tea-plant, Thea viridis, growing indigenous, in the greatest luxuriance 

 and abundance, in the mountainous districts of Pennsylvania." 



This is a gross error, which, as a botanist and one acquainted with the 

 mountainous districts of Pennsylvania, I now desire to correct. That the true 

 Tea-plant, Thea viridis, or any of its varieties, have ever been detected growing in~ 

 digenously in the mountains of Pennsylvania, I deny most emphatically ! and 

 I challenge the gentlemen of the American Tea Company to prove the fact 

 which they announce as one of the most surprising bestowments ever vouch- 

 safed by Almighty God to the people of the United States. 



Could it be possible that a plant so well known under cultivation in our 

 hot-houses should have escaped the sagacity and experience of such active 

 and eminent botanists as Michaux, Pursh, Muhlenberg, Schweinitz, Nuttall, 

 Pickering, Porter, and a host of excellent Pennsylvania botanists, who have 

 explored every nook and corner of our mountain forests, without ever finding 

 a single plant of the Thea viridis, which the originators of the American Tea 

 Company boldly assert to have found growing indigenous, hardy, vigorous and 

 abundant, almost at our doors ? 



By this emphatic declaration of mine, I have no intention to impeach the 

 good faith of these gentlemen ; they have been mistaken, no doubt, and my 

 object, as a botanist, is to correct a misrepresentation which might lead credu- 

 lous persons into serious miscalculations. No botanist will ever look at the 

 figures of the plate accompanying the circular, or take the trouble to steep in 

 boiling water and unfold the leaves of the American tea, without easily recog- 

 nizing those of a small shrub, Ceanothus Americanus, very common in our 

 woods, and popularly known by the name of Jersey tea, under which it was 

 used during the Revolutionary War, not as genuine Chinese tea, however, but as 

 a substitute for it, when the latter could not be easily procured. 



Had the figures of the plate of the American Tea Company been provided 

 with flowers and fruit, as they ought to have been, in order to characterize the 

 plant, the gross error of these gentlemen would have been more glaring. In- 

 stead of the large, solitary, or geminate flowers of the Chinese tea- plant, they 

 would have exhibited cymose fascicles of numerous very small flowers, sup- 

 ported on a common peduncle much longer than the leaves. 



I now submit to your inspection dry and green specimens of different forms 

 of Thea viridis, with figures of the same plant, that they may be compared with 

 specimens of Ceanothus Americanus, the plant which I have every reason to 

 consider as that which is represented in the plate of the American Tea Com- 

 pany. I wil! also show you leaves and fragments of leaves of both Chinese 

 and American teas, that have been steeped in boiling water, and afterwards 

 unfolded and pasted separately upon paper. You will here easily distinguish 

 the peculiar and invariable characters of the leaves of each of these plants, so 

 different from each other. 



The Chinese plant, as well as its varieties, is a shrub from three to six feet 

 high, and sometimes higher, which belongs to the Camellia family. It is dis- 

 tinguished by large polyandrous flowers, solitary or geminate in the axils of 

 the leaves ; sepals from five to six ; petals five, six, and rarely as many as nine, 

 slightly united at the base; stamens numerous and monadelphous ; three 

 united styles ; capsule three-celled. The leaves axe persistent, oval or narrow- 

 lanceolate, feather-veined, strongly serrate, and attenuated at the base. 



The Jersey-Tea plant is an undershrub of the order Rhamnacese, scarcely more 

 than two feet high, with very small perigynous flowers in cymose fascicles ; 

 sepals and petals five-parted; stamens five; one style and a three-lobed dry 



[Oct. 



