WILD TEA . 



17 



the parent shrub. No large trees were found, the generality being 

 six or seven feet high ; all above this height being straggling, slender, 

 unhandsome shrubs : the leaves upon the whole were, I think, smaller 

 than those of the Kujoo plants. With respect to the plants with which 

 it is here associated, I may observe that they were nearly the same 

 with those of the Kujoo jungle, but here there was nevertheless one 

 striking difference, that the jungle was by no means so dark in con- 

 sequence of the smaller size of the jungle trees. The underwood 

 consisted chiefly of ferns, among which Polipodium unitum was very 

 common, and a Lycopodium. Bamboos occurred here and there, 

 although by no means so extensively as at Kujoo. 



Chyrsobaphus Roxburghii, and a new Dicksonia, D. Griffithiana, 

 Wall, were the plants of the greatest interest. With regard to the 

 limits of the tea, it is by all accounts of no very great extent ; but 

 this is a point upon which it is difficult to say any thing decisive, in 

 consequence of the thickness of the jungle. The space on which 

 we found it may be said to be an elbow of the land, nearly surround- 

 ed by the Manmoo river, on the opposite side of which, where 

 we were encamped, it is reported not to grow. Within this space 

 the greater part consists of a gentle elevation or rather large mound. 

 On this it is very abundant, as likewise along its sides, where the soil 

 is looser, less sandy, and yellow (McClell.) ; along the base of this I 

 think it is less common, and the soil is here more sandy, and much 

 darker (McClell.) We partly ascertained that it was limited to the 

 west, in which direction we soon lost sight of it. To the south and 

 eastward of the elbow of land it is most common, but here it is, as I 

 have said above, stopped by the river. 



The greatest diameter of the stem of any plant that I saw in this 

 place, might be two or three inches, certainly not more. 



Nadowar, Feb. \lth. — Our route from this village, at which we 

 were encamped, to the tea locality in the neighbouring forest, lay 

 for the first time partly over paddy fields, the remainder over high 

 ground covered with the usual grasses, with here and there a low 

 strip ; all was excessively wet. We next traversed a considerable tract 

 of tree jungle, perhaps for nearly a mile ; this was a drier and higher 

 soil than the rice ground. On the northern flank of this, and close to 

 the edge of the jungle we came to the tea, situated on a low strip of 

 ground. 



This plant here occupies an extremely limited space, and its 

 greatest, and indeed almost only extent, is from south to north. It is 



d 



