Thuya 199 



resembles the variety of the same name belonging to Thuya occidentalis ; the latter 

 is slightly whiter on both surfaces of the leaves. 



Distribution, etc. 



Thuya orientalis occurs wild in the mountains of north China. It is common 

 in tKt hills west of Pekin, where Fortune ' observed trees of a large size, 50 or 60 

 feet in height. Elsewhere in China it is only met with planted in cemeteries and 

 temple grounds. It has been known to the Chinese from the earliest times as the 

 Poh or Peh tree, and is mentioned in their classical books ; it was planted around 

 the graves of feudal princes, and its wood was used for making the coffins of great 

 officials. The tree was introduced into Japan from China at an early period, 

 probably like so many other Chinese plants, by the Buddhist missionaries. Japanese 

 botanists are all agreed that it is not indigenous in Japan. Various other regions 

 have been mentioned as being the home of Thuya orientalis, as Siberia, Turkestan, 

 Himalayas, etc. ; but specimens collected in these countries are undoubtedly from 

 cultivated trees. The tree is mentioned by Gmelin in his Flora Siberica, i, 182 

 (1747); but only as occurring between Kiachta and Peking. Ledebour ^ denies its 

 existence in any part of Siberia. 



Thuya orientalis was first grown in Europe at Leyden, some time before 1737, 

 when Linnaeus^ described the plant as Thuya strobilis uncinatis squamis reflexa 

 acuminatis. Royen, who sent a specimen to Linnaeus, mentions th'e species with 

 considerable details in his account * of the plants that were cultivated at that time in 

 the Botanic Garden at Leyden ; but his promised account of the history of its 

 introduction apparently never was published. It is possible that it was raised from 

 seed sent home by the Dutch from Japan, as Kaempfer, who travelled in that 

 country from 1690 to 1692, collected specimens of Thuya orientalis which are still 

 preserved in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington.'^ Seeds were also 

 soon afterwards sent to Paris by the missionaries in north China. The earliest 

 account of it in England occurs in a letter dated February i, 1743, from the Duke 

 of Richmond to Collinson, as follows : " I am sorry to find by Miller that I am not 

 likely to have the Chinese Thuya. I own, if it belonged to anybody that would sell 

 it, I should be foolish enough to offer ten guineas for it, because it is the only one 

 in England that can match that which I have already." It was cultivated early by 

 Miller' in the Physic Garden at Chelsea. 



Thuya orientalis never attains in this country any considerable dimensions. It 

 ripens good seed ; and at Kew, on a wall near the Director's office, may be seen a 



' Yedo and Peking, 307, 382 (1863). Fortune supposed that the wild tree in north China was distinct from that 

 cultivated near Shanghai ; but there is no doubt that the trees, which attain a great size in the hills west of Peking, are ordinary 

 Thuya orientalis. 



2 Comment, in Gmelini Fl. Sibericam, 60 (184 1). ' Hort. Cliff. 449 ( 1737)- 



* Flora Leydensis Prodromus, 87 (1740). 



* I have seen these specimens. See Salisbury, Coniferous Plants of Kaempfer, m/our. Science and Arts, ii. 313 (1817). 

 Kaempfer does not mention the plant in his Amcenitates Exotica. 



" See Miller, Card. Did. ed. 6 (1752), and ed. 8 (1768), sub "Thuya." 

 ' Cf. Alton, Hort. Kew. iii. 371 (1789). 



