xiv THE TEA TREE AND THE GINSENG 197 



be made to thrive, and fresh specimens had to be pro- 

 cured from China. At last in the autumn of 1774 a tree, 

 near 5 feet in height, flowered at Upton, and next year 

 it had risen to 7! feet, the finest tea tree in England ; 

 growing on the open ground, carefully sheltered by glass 

 in winter, and covered at night with a mat. The savants 

 came to see it, Lettsom bringing his friends to the garden. 

 Following his steadfast aim to introduce useful vegetables 

 into climates similar to their own, Fothergill sent speci- 

 mens of the Chinese tea-plant from his garden to the 

 southern provinces of America, in like manner as the 

 plant was taken some sixty years later to India and 

 Ceylon. With a similar aim he procured the bamboo 

 cane from China, and the cinnamon tree, and sought to 

 give them a footing in the West Indian Islands ; this 

 afterwards came to pass ; and but for the hindrance of 

 war he would have done the same for the bread-fruit tree 

 and the mangosteen. 1 



The Ginseng, long called Panax, now Aralia quinque- 

 folia, a plant belonging to the ivy order, has enjoyed an 

 extraordinary reputation in China for many ages, being 

 esteemed a sovereign cure for manifold diseases ; it was 

 grown in imperial plantations on the mountainsides of 

 Chinese Tartary. Collinson imported the same plant 

 from Pennsylvania in 1740, and its sweet-scented flower 

 bloomed in his Peckham garden. He induced Bartram 

 to grow the plant, and large quantities were sent from 

 North America for sale in China. Its fame as a remedy 

 had long interested Fothergill : he tried a decoction of 

 the root in medicine, and found it to be aromatic and 

 mucilaginous, helpful in chronic catarrhs and for the 

 aged. 2 



Among the New World treasures was a large aromatic 

 evergreen shrub, the Starry Anise (Illicium floridanum 



1 See Works, iii. pp. xl-xlvi ; Lettsom, Natural History of the Tea Tree, 

 1772 ; Correspondence of Dr. R. Richardson, 1835 ; Corresp. Linnceus ; 

 Darlington, pp. 348, 513 ; Nichols, Lit. Anecd. ; J. Ellis, Description of the 

 Mangostan and Bread-Fruit, 1775. 



2 Fothergill introduced an allied species, Acanthopanax aculeatum Seem, 

 from China. See Works, i. 202 ; Med. Trans. Roy. Coll. Phys. iii. 34 ; 

 Darlington, p. 127 ; J. Bigelow, Amer. Med. Bot. ii. 82 ; Alston MSS. 



