— 273 — 



by soine modem geneticians; and that botanist, who could scarcely believe 

 ail spécimens in Watt's herbarium to belong to one and the same 

 species '), may liave appealed to that same „vague notion" in support 

 of his view. But I think if this naturalist had also been acquainted with 

 the other Camellia-species, and if he had known the very isolated position 

 of the 7'/zea-section as compared with the other Camellia's, he would 

 possibly hâve felt an equal appréhension of subdividing this relatively 

 homogeneous morphological group. 



There are, besides, more practical reasons for uniting ail forms of tea. 

 The commercial seed types, „Landsorten" they might be called, are anything 

 but well-defined varieties; they présent a stupendous mixture of the most 

 diverging leaf shapes, as Fig. 11 very convincingly demonstrates. It v^ould 

 be a hopeless task to sift them according to Linnean species which are 

 besides mère abstractions, whereas their description by purely statistical 

 methods is not, in principle, impracticable. Moreover, everybody under- 

 stands that the word „tea" means any variety of tea as long as no form is 

 expressly mentioned by name. 



The latter Une of argument is supported by the subséquent curious 

 reasoning. If a new form of Camellia is met with. how are we to make 

 out whether it is a „tea plant" or not? We may of course limit this 

 conception by botanical distinctions. But we know that Wallich did so 

 and accordingly declared the Assam Camellia not to be a tea plant; but 

 when it proved to yield genuine tea, he had to come round and formu- 

 lated a wider diagnosis ^). We may on the other hand consider the tea 

 yielding faculty as the essential characteristic of a „tea plant". But then, 

 what is tea? The beverage containing coffein, tannin and aromatic consti- 

 tuents, prepared from Ilex paragitayensis and known as „yerba mate" ^), 

 a tea-substitute, — is it tea? and a tea-like extract from a Camellia-species 

 with a bitter or acid contituent, — would not it be? Clearly we would go 

 too far if we identified ail tea yielding plants with tea plants, and not far 

 enough if we confined ourselves to the botanical characteristics available 

 on the présent day. So, any diagnosis will needs lack definiteness; but 

 this much we may safely infer, that it is undesirable to make the spécifie 

 limits much narrower than the limits assigned to the tea producing capacity. 



i hâve therefore decided in favour of one single collective species, 

 including ail tea plants under cultivation. 



Now, what name must we adopt for this collective species? I propose 

 the name placed at the heading of this chapter, to wit, Camellia theifera 

 (Griff.) Dyer, and such on the following grounds. 



This name was used for the first time by Griffith"*), who applied it 

 to the Assam tea plant in contradistiction from China tea („C. bohea"). 



') G. Watt 1907. p. 70. 



2) The same holds good for the var. pubescens Pierre = lasiocalyx Watt, a form 

 presenting characteristics fortnerly uiiknown in tea plants. 



3) Vide O. Rammstedt 1915. 



*) W. Griffith 1854 (Not.), p. 558; (Icon.), tab. 601, fig. 1 and 3. 



