— 257 — 



We might iiow set forth tlie conceptions of G. Watt on the China 

 tea plant, but since that botanist treats this „variety", as we niay siimmarily 

 cal! it, together with the huiian fornis, considering them, as I equally do, 

 as only one species, we will follow the same course and therefore hâve 

 to go back tiil the earliest descrip ions and distinctions connected with 

 the so-called „Assam tea". 



I will not, however, go so far as Sir Watt, in his valuable paper 

 on „Tea and the tea plant" (1907), thought possible. In this treatise he 

 drew the attention to a very ancient and instructive herbarium spécimen, 

 which exists in vol. LXXXl, p. 48, of the Sloane Herbarium of the British 

 Muséum and is said to be collected on the Malabar coast, between 1698 

 and 1702, by Samuel Browne and Edward Bulklev. This spécimen, 

 according to Watt, is not var. bohea (the plant, he says, presently being 

 cultivated most frequently in the plantations of South India), but var. 

 viridis, and was ,,thus" very similar to the so-called „Assam Indigenous". 

 Apart from the nomenclature, which l do not think is correct, I hâve, 

 in my earlier paper (1916, p. 97-98), already pointed out that Sir Watt 

 probably overestimated the sample referred to, and that it in ail likelihood 

 had been derived from genuine China tea imported in India. As a matter 

 of fact •), tea was brought to the Cape of Good Hope by Andréas Cleyer 

 and George Meister, as early as 1687, and with success! There are other 

 instances yet, proving that the officers of the Dutch East India Company 

 were in that period diligent with regard to „acclimatization" experiments. 

 One of those instances is the tea plant represented in Governor-General 

 Camphuys's garden at Batavia about 1695, mentioned in the beginning of 

 my first chapter. The following fact has a more direct bearing on the 

 question: during the first part of the 18*^1 century the Malabar coast belonged 

 to the Dutch E. I. C. and the Governor-General van Hoorn (1701-1708) 

 is recorded to hâve taken much interest in such matters — thus, it was he 

 who imported the coffee plant from the Malabar coast into Java 2). Might 

 not he hâve shipped the tea plant, reversely, from Java or China to 

 Malabar where it was afterwards observed by Browne and Bulklev? 



This suggestion has however, since it was published, been 'made 

 superfluous by Sir Watt himself, who once more took up the matter and 



Faber personally. And TiCHOMiROW (1892, p. 405) tells that he has made his acquaint- 

 aiice. „Seinem Herbarium. den gemeinschaftlichcn Excursionen in die Umgegend 



„von Schanghai verdanke ich sehr Vicies fur die Wissenschaft". Thèse 



facts afford sufficient proof I think, for the assumption that TlCHOMiROW inaccura- 

 tely iabelled his plants on the authority of FabeR; the more so. as his paper con- 

 tains varions other inaccuracies. 



T. Makino-(1905, p. 135; 1910, p. 112) mentions a pink variety, var. rosca Mak., 

 of the tea plant in Japan, which was considered a C. rosifloro by former anthors. 

 As this plant only exists in Japanese herbaria, l canHot judge of the correctness of 

 Maki.n'O's dénomination; perhaps, however, the error of TiCHOMiROW recurs hère. 



') j. J. DiLLENlUS 1732, p. 392. 



') P. J. Blok 1904, p. 120. -P. J. S. Cramer 1913, p. 4. 



