— 216 — 



„huyên de Than-ba" on the left bank of the Red River, in tiie hills sepa- 

 rating the latter from Ihe Riv. Claire and in Thai-Nguyen, Bac-Giang, 

 Ninh Binh and Bac-Ninh. 



Finally however, we hâve to record a discovery of extrême importan- 

 ce, namely, oflarge-leaved wild growing tea! It was fonnd 

 by Eberhardt ') on the Tam-dao chain (prov. Vinh-yên) together with an 

 eqiially wild-growing China-leaved plant ! They vvere trees of 8—10 nieters 

 in height and np to 40 centimeters in diameter, „au-dessus des forêts de 



«bambous et à l'état sporadique et dans des conditions telles 



„qu'on ne peut émettre aucun doute sur leur spontanéité", and were 

 accompanied by 5 other Theaceac on the same chain. It is most remarkable, 

 not to say incredible, that hère both „Chinese" and ,,Assamese" tea should 

 grow wild, side by side. in one of the central provinces of Tong-king 

 (though to be sure 1 cannot judge about the local environment), but scep- 

 ticism has to encounter the fact expressly nientioned by Eberhardt that 

 the natives were not acquainted with the plants"^), and that they, having 

 once tasted the beverage prepared from them, were so keen on gathering 

 the leaves, that they had felled the trees and stripped them of iheir foliage 

 before it could be hinderai! 



Mr. Ch. Lemarié, in an editorial note, adds the imformation that tea 

 is also to be found „au sommet d'un pic qui surplombe la vallée d'envi- 

 „ron 1000 mètres au voisinage de Tinh-Thuc, à l'ouest de Hâ-Giang. Les 



„ Annamites en récoltent les feuilles par l'abatage des arbres." 



He does not mention the botanical characteristics of this tea, whichistobe 

 regretted, because this locality, bordering on the district described by 

 LouvEL and Bonifacy, is much less subjecled to human interférence than 

 Vinh-yên and gets much nearer to the mountain where Henry found 

 his wild tea. 



Doubtlessly this French colony affords on opportunity of detecting new 

 Camellia's and varieties of the tea plant. Mr. Démange, who in a récent 

 paper^) enumerates the sorts of tea manufactured by the Tonkinese, mentions 

 the tea from Môc-châu with the annotation that the Annamite merchants 

 ascribe it to a plant differing from ordinary tea by ils very large leaves — 

 perhaps a distinct species or variety! 



This district lies next to the Governments of An-nam and Laos, and 

 one might expect that thèse countries would show at least some traces 

 of original tea cultivation. This however appears not to be the case. 

 According to Guigon (1901) the tea district in the environment of Tourane 

 (An-nam), for instance 200 hectares near Quang-Nam, is whoUy due to 



') Ph. Eberhardt 1907. More particulars on thèse plants in Ch. V. 



^) This constitutes a striking différence with the native tribes in the surronnding 

 Shan States, who are fond of it, as we shall see from the seqiiel. and it equaliy 

 contrasts with the weli-known fact that ail over the world even primitive tribes 

 hâve, led by a wonderful instinct, detected the useful properties of alcaloid-yielding 

 plants. 



3) V. DEMANGE 1917. 



