34 



N. Ord. TERNSTROEMIACE.ZE. Lindl., Veg. K., p. 396 ; Le Maout 



and Dec., p. 271 ; Baill., Hist. PI., vol. iv. 

 Tribe Gordoniete. 



Genus Camellia,* Linn, (including Thea, Linn.). B. & H., 

 Gen., i, p. 187; Baill., 1. c., p. 227 (Thea). Species 15 or 

 more, growing in tropical and eastern Asia and the Indian 

 Archipelago. 



34. Camellia Thea,f Link, Enum. Plant. Hort. Reg. Bet. Berol. 

 . Alt., ii, p. 73 (1822). 



Tea. 



Syn. Thea chinensis, Linn. T. viridis, Linn. T. Bohea, Linn. T. 

 stricta, Hayne. T. Assamica, Masters. Camellia theifera, Griffith 

 (1838). 



Figures. Woodville, t. 225; Hayne, vii, tt. 27, 28,29; Nees, tt. 426- 

 28 ; Bot. Mag., tt. 998 and 3148 ; Griffith, Notulse ad Plant. Asiat., iv, 

 t. 601, f. 1 and 3; Trans. Linn. Soc., xxii, t. 61 (Assam plant); Baill., 

 1. c., figs. 244250. 



Description. A small, much-bran ched, evergreen shrub, with 

 slender branches covered with a smooth pale-brown bark ; young 

 twigs and buds downy. Leaves alternate, shortly stalked, some- 

 what variable in form and size, usually 2 4 inches long, oval or 

 lanceolate, pointed at each end or bluntish. and emarginate at the 

 apex, irregularly and rather distantly dentate- serrate except at 

 the base, thick, smooth and shining on both sides or slightly 

 downy beneath, dark green, paler below, veins strongly marked 

 with the leaf convex and rather bullate in the intervals. Flowers 

 solitary or two or three together on short branchlets in the leaf- 

 axils, somewhat drooping, on short stalks with a few small bracts, 



* George Joseph Camel, or Camelli, was a Dutch Jesuit missionary in 

 Luzon, and a first-rate naturalist. His plants, drawings, and descriptions 

 were sent to Holland in 1700, afterwards came in the hands of Petiver, and 

 are now in the British Museum. 



f Thea, a Latin rendering of the Chinese Teh, and first employed by 

 Kaempfer. " Nomen barbarum," says Linnaeus, who retained it, however, for 

 this divine plant, as though Thea might mean Dea (see Hort. Cliff., p. 205). 



