TEBNSTKOEMIACEAE. 



235 



THEA. Tea. Camellia. 

 (Family Ternstroemiaceae). 



Shrubs : evergreen. Twigs 

 moderate or slender, terete: pith 

 round, more or less spongy. Buds 

 rather small, solitary, sessile, 

 ovoid, with 2 scales, or the flower- 

 buds enlarged and exposing some 

 eight 2-ranked scales. Leaf-scars 

 alternate, crescent - shaped t o 

 nearly elliptical, more or less 

 raised from a somewhat shrunken 

 area: bundle-trace 1, compound, 

 crescent- or C-shaped: stipule- 

 scars lacking. Leaves moderate, 

 short-stalked, crenately serrate. 

 (Includes Camellia). 



Tea (Thea) and coffee (Coffea) 

 are entirely unrelated plants 

 which produce what is regarded 

 as an identical alkaloid, caffein, 

 which gets its name from the lat- 

 ter but is prepared commercially 



in large quantities from tea-leaves. The Paraguay tea (Ilex) 

 owes its stimulating properties to the same substance, as does 

 the guarana (Paullinia), one of the Sapindaceae. Chocolate 

 or cacao contains a closely related alkaloid, theobromin. 



1. Twigs glabrous. 2. 



Twigs somewhat loose-hairy. T. Sasanqua. 



2. Twigs slender: leaf-scars crescent-shaped. 



(Tea). (1). T. sinensis. 

 Twigs stouter: leaf-scars subelliptical. 



(Camellia). (2). T. japonica. 



