310 OBSERVATIONS ON THE RICE-PAPER TREE. 
South Wales. T published the first figure of this tree in my * Wanderings 
in N. S. Wales, Singapore, and China’ (vol. ii. p. 77) in the year 1834. 
The engraving was made from a large coloured drawing by a Chinese ar- 
tist, and procured for me by the late Mr. Beale, of Macao, who interested 
himself in my inquiries respecting the tree that produced the material 
known as ** Rice Paper," but at that time all my efforts to procure 
plants were in vain; specimens of the pith of the tree in its unpre- 
pared state, and the sketch before mentioned, were all I could obtain. 
The name given to this tree I ascertained was Tong, there. On sub- 
mitting the drawing, on my arrival in England, to Mr. A. B. Lambert 
and Mr. David Don, they expressed an opinion that the rice-paper 
plant would most probably prove to be a species of Aralia. In 1850 
Dr. Seemann, on visiting Southern China, obtained a translation of the 
account which the Chinese themselves give of the plant in the Materia 
Medica of Li-shi-chin (Hook. Kew Journ. iv. p. 25), from which we 
learn that the plant is called Tung-toh-muh or sometimes Tung-tsau 
(č. e. the hollow plant). In 1852 living plants were procured by the 
exertions of Sir John Bowring, and my.Chinese drawing was then 
found to be an accurate representation of the tree. It has now been 
ascertained that the tree grows abundantly on the island of Formosa, 
and is extensively cultivated in various districts of that island; and 
it is stated by the Chinese to attain the height of from twelve to 
fourteen feet; also that it is not propagated from seeds, but throws up 
shoots like the Bamboo from the root, and this account accords with 
the number of suckers we observe that are thrown up by the tree in 
N. S. Wales. " 
The first Rice-paper plant was sent to Sydney, N. S. Wales, by 
Mr. J. Veitch, jun. (of the Royal Exotic Nursery at Chelsea), to Mr. 
C. Moore, the Director of the Botanical Gardens, and by whom, shortly 
after its arrival in November, 1857, (one of the early summer months 
in Australia) was planted out in the open grounds of the Botanical 
Garden. It grew very rapidly, and soon began to throw up a consider- 
able number of suckers; indeed, so many, that after giving away nu- 
merous specimens to the botanist of the Austrian frigate * Novara,’ and 
taking ten in a dried state myself to England for the Herbarium, 
the whole of the numerous plants now growing in the colony have 
been produced from this tree. On the 26th of April, 1858, it had at- 
tained the height of 3 feet 8 inches, and a circumference of foliage of 
