— 289 — 



I said the flower was pink-coloured, thoiigh I am aware that I am 

 hère at variance with Seemann '), who brings only iv^/Y^-flowered forms 

 to C. Sasanqaa, referring the pink ones to ,,Thea maliflora (Lindl.) 

 Seem." = 5asû/2gz/a pr. p. -^ rosiflora Hook. But I cannot agrée with this 

 classification. The genus Camellia présents an exceedingly large numberof 

 colour-varieties (C. Japonical), hence the existence of white and red flowers 

 respectively in two otherwise almost identical plants is not sufficient 

 reason to regard them as différent species, as Lindley did in creating his 

 maliflora. Moreover, maliflora in the wider sensé of Seemann is said to 

 hâve a glabrous ovary, whereas the i arakansalak plants combined pink 

 flowers and a hairy ovary. I hâve therefore in my détermination table 

 entirely separated Sasanqua and rosiflora, bringing them even to différent 

 sections. 



C. Camellia confusa Craib (Fig. 16). 



On his journey in Upper Siam, Hosseus found a plant that was 

 described by him 2) as ,,Thea japonica forma". At Kew it was determined 

 by Craib as Camellia drupifera^), whereas the spécimen at Berlin (pictured 

 in Fig. 16, and bearing the désignation Hosseus No. 180 just as the 

 duplicate samples at Kew and Leyden) is labelled C. Sasanqua. However, 

 neither of thèse names fits the plant; from C. japonica it diverges quite 

 distinctly by its felt-coated ovary and by its habit; from C. Sasanqua by its 

 habit and its large acuminate leaves; from C. drupifera, by its very large 

 flowers. Hence Craib was right in revoking his former décision and 

 creating a new species, C. confusa^), clearly alluding to the confusion 

 caused by the plant. Besides the sample of Hosseus (No. 180) he 

 mentions 3 new cases, viz. collected by Garrett (No. 100) and Kerr 

 (No. 889 and 1363), ail spécimens being derived from the Doi Sutep 

 mountain range near Chiengmai, where Satow, Stringer and Kerr 

 found their Lao tea plant too. It deserves mentioning that according to 

 Hosseus, C confusa bears the native name of ,,miang jam", according to 

 Kerr ,,mieng pa', whereas the indigenous tea plant, according to the 

 last-named author, is designated ,,miang", according to Satow ,,mieng". 

 In my opinion it proves that the natives use the name ,,mieng" or „miang" 

 (Chin. ,,ming"!) -^ tea, very arbitrarily, and that a native name may lead 

 us on a wrong track if we do not personally control its exactitude. 



It seems that the distribution of this species is not limited to Upper 

 Siam. In the Kew herbarium I found a plant, collected as No. 4624 by 

 J. H. Lace in 1909 on the Dawna range, Thaton district (Southern Burma, 

 near Chiengmai, as the map shows), which is very similar to the Doi 

 Sutep samples. Tiien, Henry sent to Kew a spécimen (No. 12796) from 

 Sze-mao, Yun-nan, that seems to me a somewhat small-flowered variety of 



•) B. Seemann 1857, p. 344. 



2) C. C. Hosseus I9il, p. 413. 



3) W. G. Craib 1911, p. 16. 

 *) W. G. Craib 1914, p. 5-6. 



