292 Prof. Gray's Address before the 
churia, and which is now known to inhabit Corea and Northern 
Japan. The Jesuit Fathers identified the plant in Canada and 
the Atlantic States, brought over the Chinese name by which 
we know it, and established the trade in it which was for many 
eige most profitable. The exportation of ginseng to China 
as probably not yet entirely ceased. Whether the Asiatic and 
the Atlantic American ginsengs are exactly of the same species 
or not is somewhat uncertain, but they are hardly if at all dis- 
tinguishable. 
There is a shrub—Zllioitia—which is so rare and local that 
it is known only at two stations on the Savannah river in 
Georgia. It is of peculiar structure, and was without near rela- 
tive until one was lately discovered in Japan (in Tripetaleia) 
so like it as hardly to be distinguishablexcept by having the 
parts of the blossom in threes instead of fours, a difference 
which is not uncommon in the same genus or even in the same 
species. 
Suppose Eiliottia had happened to be collected only once, 4 
good while ago, and all knowledge of the limited and obscure 
locality was lost; and meanwhile the Japanese form came to 
known. Such a case would be parallel with an actual one. A 
specimen of a peculiar plant, Shortia galacifolia, was detected 10 
the herbarium of the elder Michaux, who collected it (as bis 
autograph ticket shows) somewhere in the high Alleghany 
mountains more than eighty years ago. No one has seen the 
living plant since, or knows where to find it, if haply it still 
flourishes in some secluded spot. At length it is found 12 
Japan; and I had the satisfaction of making the identification.” 
One other relative is also known in Japan; and another still 
unpublished has just been detected in Thibet. 
Whether the Japanese and the Alleghanian plants are exactly 
the same or not, it needs complete specimens of the two to 
settle. So far as we know they are just alike, And even if 
_ some difference were discerned between them, it would not ap- 
preciably alter the question as to how such a result came 10 
ass. Each and every one of the analogous cases I have beet 
detailing—and very many more could be mentioned—ralses 
the same question and would be satisfied with the same avswe! 
These singular relations attracted my curiosity early 1 the 
made (by Messrs. Williams and Morrow) during Commo’ ore 
Perry's visit in 1853, and, ially, by Mr. Charles Wright 
