— 279 — 



found in very divergent locaiities 9 apparently intermingled with glabrous 

 races. Hence we should infer that tiie assertion of Penang being the ,,head 

 quarters" of the pubescent variety, in the same sensé as viridis having 

 originated in Naga and Assam -^ as Sir Watt wrote to me — cannotjustly 

 be maintained. My impression is that in tea hairy individuals are liable to 

 descend from glabrous races, just as in the midst of a normal human 

 population now and then there originale some people densely covered with 

 long hairs. Thèse cases, well-known in teratology, may be termed sports or 

 mutations, they may be ascribed to ,, latent characters" or to ségrégation — 

 but anyhow, to take such scarce forms as the point of departure for 

 fréquent types such as stricta, this won't do, in my opinion. 



Ad la. — Having decided that large and small-leaved tea races should 

 be separated, we are naturally brought to emphasise the interrelationship of 

 the latter forms. I lay spécial stress on Watt's statement that there is no 

 expérimental évidence of the supposed cross viridis (large) X lasiocalyx 

 (small) -s/r/cto (very small leaf); moreover, this author says that his 

 varieties stricta, bohea and lasiocalyx (being the forms that I am disposed 

 to call ,,Chinese") are by their yellow stomata absolutely distinct from 

 viridis'^). If Watt's idea, that thèse small-leaved forms always or usually 

 possess yellow stomata (at least in an exsiccated state,) should be con- 

 firmed 3), then his varietal distinctions cannot be upheld, because among the 

 spécimens determined by him there are sundry ones where the criterion 

 fails Would not ail thèse questions concerning the exact name of inferior 

 Chinese tea forms be eliminated for good and ail, by referring them ail 

 to the variety sinensis? Finally, with regard to the argument that stricta 

 should be a distinct species because there do not exist intermediary forms 

 between stricta and viridis — except the „hybrid" bohea — , we may observe 

 that what is usually called an „intermediary form", is often but a genuine 

 hybrid, and that the word „hybrid" is in many cases unappropriately used 

 by systematists to designate a type that keeps the médium between two 

 supposed parents. 1 suspect that hère a similar confusion has taken place. 

 Hence, if we look ont for interniediaries, we must expect to find hybrid 

 forms, and on the other hand, no form may be called a hybrid in a scien- 

 tific sensé, that is not experimentally produced as such. For the rest, the 

 présent criterion for spécifie distinctness is an extremely doubtful one! 



Ad 2.— Either the British planters- are very much mistaken, when 

 considering Linnaeus's bohea plant as a „hybrid", or they mean a real 



') The enumeration in .Appendix B shows that even from Mauritius a plant has been 

 collectée! which Watt reduced to this variety. 



^) „ln fact this peculiarity so unerringly séparâtes thèse two [threel] plants from ail 

 „the other races of tea that it makes one hesitate to accept either as being hybrids 

 '„from the larger-leaved forms." Watt 1907, p. 77.— 1 need not say that this state- 

 ment is very much in favour of my idea; and I may add that, as a rule. the 

 small-leaved herbarium samples determined as viridis by Watt, were possessed oj 

 the same „shining scales" as the other small-leaved races! 



3) It would be interesting to apply this test to manufactured teas so as to verify their 

 origin, and to examine hybrid spécimens in a dried state, 



