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species was known to exist only in China, and 

 believed to grow there, in highest perfection, in the 

 temperate climate of the North. Little it is true 

 was known of the interior of China; but how- 

 soever little that little was, it is an undoubted 

 fact, that, what was known, to the botanic world, 

 of Assam, was infinitely less, for it was nothing 

 at all\ No lukevvarmness can be attributed to any 

 of the gentlemen engaged in the enquiry after it 

 was satisfactorily proved that the Assam plant was 

 a real tea ; and from that date the whole question, 

 from a botanic point of view, resolved itself into 

 this. Is it identical with the tea plant of China, or 

 a new species? And what has experience proved? 

 Why simply, that if the Thea Assamica, is not dis- 

 tinct in species from the Thea Bohea, it is quite as 

 distinct from it, as the Thea Bohea, is from the Thea 

 Viridis; that the numerous cultivated varieties of both 

 the latter species, found growing in the same garden 

 in China, often differ sufficiently from each other in 

 external characteristics to give color to the belief that 

 the Thea Bohea and the Thea Viridis, may originally 

 have sprung from one and the same stock ; that the 

 China tea shrub ' delights in high situations ;' and 

 that a// the fine green teas of China, are grown in the 

 temperate climate of the north, and the finest of 

 the black teas, on the slopes of the Bohea Hills. 



The simple fact then, would seem to be, that the tea 

 shrub is a peculiarly hardy plant, and in the dis- 



