142 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



a little higher than Tingri, and Tingri a little higher than 

 Kahung, but I believe they are equally productive; although 

 if I leaned towards any side, with my limited experience, I 

 should say that the low land, such as Kahung^ which is not so 

 low as ever to be inundated bv the strongest rise in the river, 

 is the best. The plants seem to love and court moisture, 

 not from stagnant pools, but running streams. The Kahung 

 tracts have the water in and around them ; they are all in 

 heavy tree jungles, which makes it very expensive to clear 

 them. 



" I may here observe, that the sun has a material effect on 

 the leaves ; for as soon as the trees that shade the plants are 

 removed, the leaf, from a fine deep green, begins to turn into 

 a yellovvish colour, which it retains for some months, and 

 then again gradually changes to a healthy green, but now 

 becomes thicker, and the plant throws out far more nume- 

 rous leaves than when in the shade. The more the leaves 

 are plucked, the greater number of them are produced ; if 

 the leaves of the first crop were not gathered, you might 

 look in vain for the leaves of the second crop. The Tea 

 made from the leaves in the shade is not near so good as that 

 from leaves exposed to the sun ; the leaves of plants in the 

 sun are much earlier in season than of those in the shade ; 

 the leaves from the shady tract give out a more watery liquid 

 when rolled, and those from the sunny a more glutinous sub- 

 stance. When the leaves of either are rolled on a sunny 

 day, they emit less of this liquid than on a rainy day. This 

 juice decreases as the season advances. The plants in the 

 sun have flowers and fruit much earlier than those in the 

 shade, and are far more numerous ; they have flowers and 

 ■ seeds in July, and fruit in November. Numerous plants are 

 to be seen that by some accident, either cold or rain, have 

 lost all their flowers, and commence throwing out fresu 

 flower-buds more abundantly than ever. Thus it is not un- 

 frequent to see some plants in flower so late as March (some 

 of the China plants were in flower in April) bearing at once 

 the old and the new seeds, flower-buds, and full-blo«''^ 



