FLOWERING SHRUBS 
the State of New Jersey, where the leaves of the Ceanothus 
were first adopted as a substitute for the Chinese Tea-plant. 
Even to this day Americans will cross to Ontario in summer 
to gather quantities of the leaves to carry back from our 
plains, where it is found in great abundance. And while 
they commend the virtues of the plant, they, no doubt, 
recount the tales of war, trouble and privation endured in 
the old struggle waged by their grandfathers and great- 
grandfathers for independence, when, casting away the more 
costly tea, they had recourse to a humble native shrub to 
supply a luxury that was even then felt as a want and a 
necessity in their homes. 
The leaf of the New Jersey Tea resembles that of the 
Chinese very much, and if it wants the peculiarly fragrant 
flavor that we prize so highly in the genuine article, yet it is 
perfectly wholesome, and if prepared by heat in a similar 
way might approach more nearly to the qualities of the 
foreign article. Indeed, we are not sure but that it really 
does form one of the many adulterations that are mixed up 
with the teas of commerce for which we are content to pay 
so highly. Many years ago I was applied to by persons in 
Liverpool to supply their firm with large quantities of the 
leaves, no doubt for the purpose of adulterating the foreign 
teas in which they dealt. Of course, the proposal was 
declined. 
An old friend, one of the sons of a U. E. Loyalist, told me 
that for some years after leaving the United States (the 
family were from Vermont), the genuine Chinese Tea was 
rarely to be met with in the houses of the settlers, especially 
with such as lived in lonely backwoods settlements, that for 
the most part they made use of infusions of the leaves of the 
Redroot, or New Jersey Tea, as they had learned to call it, 
of Labrador Tea (Ledum latifolium), Sweet-fern (Comptonia 
asplenifolia), Mountain Mint or other aromatic herbs, or 
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