310 BOTANICAL DIFFERENCE. 



may have assumed, externally, all the distinctive 

 characters of two species. 



Thus, botanists ignorant of the causes of this 

 difference, and left with no other means of judging 

 than the external characters of the plants, might, 

 having such specimens before them, very proba- 

 bly, and very justly, class them as two species. 



The vast inferiority of the flavour of Twankay 

 tea, the product of the green tea plant growing on 

 the hills, with little or no attention paid to its cul- 

 ture, to that of the Hyson tea, the product of the 

 highly cultivated plant on the plains, would be ap- 

 parent and interesting to any one disposed to try 

 the experiment, by purchasing these two teas in any 

 well known and respectable grocer's shop ; viz. 

 common Twankay and line Hyson at fair average 

 prices. 



If, then, so great a change is effected in the plant 

 by soil and cultivation, and the opposite colours 

 and flavours which exist between black and green 

 teas are exclusively due to manipulation, as has 

 now been proved, not only by myself but in Java, 

 may not soil and cultivation be sufficient to account 

 for the difference, if any there be, between the 

 Congou and Twankay shrubs, — the two teas, black 

 and green, whose circumstances of situation and 

 cultivation approximate nearest to each other ? 

 So far as Java is concerned this question no longer 

 admits of doubt. It has been satisfactorily proved 

 that all the distinctive characters of black and 



