356 Miscellaneous. 



fore the reader. It will prove that even those who have had the 

 best means of judging have been deceived, and that the greater part 

 of the black and green teas which are brought yearly from China to 

 Europe and America are obtained from the same species or variety, 

 namely, from the Thea viridis. Dried specimens of this plant were 

 prepared in the districts I have named by myself, and are now in 

 the herbarium of the Horticultural Society of London, so that 

 there can be no longer any doubt upon the subject. In various 

 parts of the Canton province, where I had an opportunity of seeing 

 tea cultivated, the species proved to be the Thea Bohea, or what is 

 commonly called the black-tea plant. In the green-tea districts of 

 the north — I allude more particularly to the province of Chekiang — 

 I never met with a single plant of this species, w^hich is so common 

 in the fields and gardens near Canton. All the plants in the 

 green- tea country near Ning-po, on the islands of the Chusan 

 Archipelago, and in every part of the province which I had an op- 

 portunity of visiting, proved, without exception, to be the Thea 

 viridis. Two hundred miles further to the north-west, in the pro- 

 vince of Kiang-nan, and only a short distance from the tea hills in 

 that quarter, I also found in gardens this same species of tea. Thus 

 far my actual observation exactly verified the opinions I had formed 

 on the subject before I left England, viz. that the black teas w^ere 

 prepared from the Thea Bohea and the green from Thea viridis. When 

 I left the north, on my way to the city of Foo-chow-foo, on the river 

 Min, in the province of Fokien, I had no doubt that I should find 

 the tea hills there covered with the other Species, Thea Bohea, from 

 which we generally suppose the black teas are made ; and this was 

 the more likely to be the case as this species actually derives its 

 specific name from the Bohee hills in this province. Great was my 

 surprise to find all the plants on the tea hills near Foo-chow exactly 

 the same as those in the green-tea districts of the north. Here were, 

 then, green-tea plantations on the black-tea hills, and not a single 

 plant of the Thea Bohea to be seen. Moreover, at the time of my 

 visit, the natives were busily employed in the manufacture of black 

 teas. Although the specific differences of the tea-plants were well- 

 known to me, I was so much surprised, and I may add amused, at 

 this discovery, that I procured a set of specimens for the herbarium, 

 and also dug up a living plant, which I took northward to Chekiang. 

 On comparing it with those which grow on the green-tea hills, no 

 difference whatever was observed. It appears, therefore, that the 

 black and green teas of the northern districts of China (those districts 

 in which the greater part of the teas for the foreign markets are 

 made) are both produced from the same variety, and that that variety 

 is the Thea viridis, or what is commonly called the green-tea plant. 

 On the other hand, those black and green teas which are manufac- 

 tured in considerable quantities in the vicinity of Canton are ob- 

 tained from the Thea Bohea, or black tea. * * * 



In the green-tea districts of Chekiang near Ning-po, the first 

 crop of leaves is generally gathered about the middle of April. This 

 consists of the young leaf-buds just as they begin to unfold, and 



