HISTORY OF THE CHRYSANTHEMUM 153 



seem to have been the first to cultivate C. Indicum 

 (Pompon), which had found its way to Amboyna and 

 Malabar. Rheede figures it as early as 1699. Kaempfer 

 noticed it in 1712, and Thunberg describes it (also as 

 Matricaria) in 1784. 



Mr. Fortune told us long ago that the Chinese 

 made life-sized images of their blossoms, but who would 

 suspect the "moon-faced celestial" of liquor. And yet 

 we are told that "in China a liquor is distilled from 

 the flowers of the Chrysanthemum, which is re- 

 garded as an elixir-vitae, and in the Chinese phar- 

 macopoeia a powder of the flowers or florets dried is 

 prescribed as a cure for drunkenness." 



Large-flowered Chrysanthemums. The credit of 

 introducing the first living plants of the large-flowered 

 or C. Sinense race (1789) belongs to M. Blanchard, 

 an enterprising merchant of Marseilles. The consign- 

 ment consisted of three varieties, white, violet and 

 purple, the latter only reaching him alive. This 

 variety is so well figured in the Botanical Magazine, 

 t. 327, that we have no doubt as to its identity. It was 

 not the wild type, but one of the many semi-double 

 forms at that time cultivated in Chinese gardens. 

 This kind caused such a sensation that Sir A. Hume 

 and Mr. John Reeves (tea buyers for the then opulent 

 East India Company) turned their attention to intro- 

 ducing other Chinese varieties. 



In 1830 seedlings were first raised in France, the 

 produce being remarkable for variability, much to the 

 delight of the amateurs of Toulouse and Avignon, who 

 now began to christen their seedlings after their 

 national celebrities. 



The first English seedlings were raised in or about 

 1830 by Mr. Isaac Wheeler, gardener and porter at 

 Magdalen Hall (now Hertford College), Oxford. 



