IS INDIGENOUS IN CHINA. 17 



authenticity of those Japanese authorities, which 

 state that the Chinese received the tea plant from 

 Corea. It has already been shown, that even a 

 tax was imposed on tea by imperial mandate, more 

 than thirty years prior to the assumed date of its 

 first introduction into China by the Coreans (a.d. 

 828). And if we adopt the same ingenious line 

 of argument with reference to China, which the 

 learned author has employed regarding Japan, the 

 converse of his proposition will be proved ; for the 

 Chinese accounts all agree that the tea tree was 

 first discovered where it is found growing in the 

 present day — every where among the hills and 

 mountains in the central provinces of the empire ; 

 and, consequently, is indigenous. 



Recent \ discoveries in Assam* also seem to 

 justify the assumption, if nothing to the contrary 

 be known, that it has spontaneously extended its 

 growth along a continuous and almost uninter- 

 rupted mountainous range, but of moderate alti- 

 tude, nearly from the great river the Yang-cse- 



* Dr. Falconer considers the Assam tea tree to be a distinct 

 species, and Mr. M'Cleland a native product. This author con- 

 cludes his interesting paper on the Assam tea plant in the following 

 words : — " In this way, we derive from zoology additional aid in 

 support of those views which the sister sciences afford, and are 

 taught to look upon the tea plant in Assam, thus associated with 

 the natural productions of Eastern Asia, not as an alien estranged 

 from its own climate, but as an indigenous plant, neglected it is 

 true by man, but in the full enjoyment from nature of all those 

 peculiar conditions on which its properties will be found under 

 proper management to depend." 



C 



