GEOGKAPHY OF PLANTS. 517 



tlie same ; "Brazil and the Brazilians," by D. P. Kidder and J. C. Fletcher, 

 American clergymen, twenty years resident in Brazil ; articles on "tea cxil- 

 ture" and the experimental garden at Washington, D. 0., &c., in the volnmes 

 of the Patent Office Report, agricultural division, for 1857, 1859, &c. 



Ignorance, if not always the parent of fraud, is ever apt to become the prey 

 of the unscrupulous and designing. Ignorance may itself mislead with the 

 best intentions, for presumption is often but the measure of want of knowledge. 

 An instance is at hand of very recent date. Had the true character of the 

 tea plant and its climatology been well understood, we would not have had to 

 lament the mistake that has been made by some whom we charitably hope 

 were w^ell-meaning but erring enthusiasts, who have pei-suaded themselves 

 that the genuine tea plant has been found growing in wild profusion, indige- 

 nous, in the mountain districts of northern Pennsylvauia. A moderate acquaiut- 

 ance with our botany would not have permitted them to imagine the common 

 Ccnnoihus Americana, or New Jersey tea, to be identical with their favorite 

 Thea inridis, or rather with a variety of it, the Thea Assamica. So far from 

 being identical, these plants are not found in the same genus, as -we perceive, 

 nor in Uie same order, nor even in the same sub-class of Dicotyledons ; nor 

 does the New Jersey tea contain, as shown by the analysis made by Dr 

 Gibbs, of the Lawrence scientific school at Cambridge, Massachusetts, any 

 Theine whatever ! 



It may seem to many who advocate the use of tea as a beverage that the 

 extended cultivation of a plant seemingly so valuable should be encouraged. 

 To such we would suggest, in the absence of direct experiments with the gen- 

 uine tea plant, the propriety of seeking among our indigenous plants for those 

 that may contain the principle of Theine, to which the virtues of tea are as- 

 cribed. There are doubtless several growing wild in the United States which 

 will produce this substance, and perhaps those most likely to furnish it may 

 be found in the natural order Ternstromiacea, to w^hich the Chinese tea plant 

 belongs. Linnaeus declares that species of the same genus possess similar vir- 

 tues — a doctrine admitted to be incontrovertible, and which reduces the whole 

 history of medical or economical uses of the vegetable kingdom to a compara- 

 tively small number of general laws, whereby the properties of a species we 

 have never seen before may be determined by what we already know of some 

 other species to which it is related. The above order Ternstromiacea contains 

 the Gordonia and Stuartia, both growing in this country ; the former, the 

 holly-bay of the south, is native in the latitude of Charleston, South Carolina, 

 and the latter is found on the mountains of Virginia and Tennessee, and is 

 quite hardy in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, at the Bartram Botanic Gar- 

 den. There are few trees or shrubs whose flowers can compare in beauty with 

 those of the Stuartia perdagynia. As plants of the same natural order, as 

 above remarked, often possess properties closely allied, sometimes identical, 

 the above-named Gordonia puhescens in the south, and Stuartia pentagynia 

 in more northern districts, might, on examination, prove at least much more 

 valuable substitutes for the Tkea viridis or Thea Assamica than the New Jer- 

 sey tea, which, says Dr. Darlington, "must have sorely tried the patriotism of 

 our grandmothers." . 



The foregoing outlines of the laws regulating the effect of heat, &c., upon 

 plants will, we hope, lead to some valuable practical results. The climate we 

 cannot modify to any very important extent ; but the injurious influences we 

 may shun by judicious choice of locality, seasons of growth, more fitting selec- 

 tion of varieties of plants, superior and better adapted seeds, and by improving, 

 through our physiological knowledge, the various vegetable products upon 

 which we must operate. 



