466 On the Paeonia Moutan, or Tree Paeony, $c. 



put on shipboard in China, to be brought to England, very 

 few live to reach their destination. With the exception of 

 the Azaleas, they seem to bear a long voyage worse than 

 any other of the productions of the Chinese gardens, which 

 we have hitherto obtained. 



Large quantities of flowering plants closely laid together 

 in open packages, without mould to their roots, are annually 

 brought in the course of the winter, from distant parts of the 

 Chinese Empire, to Canton. These, notwithstanding this 

 exposure, blossom in the ensuing spring ; but either from the 

 climate not agreeing with them, or the treatment they receive 

 being unsuitable, the state of those which survive to the 

 autumn, is such that they are not fit for removal with any 

 chance of success. After their first blossoming at Canton, 

 these plants never flower again, but dwindle and decay, and 

 from this cause, the Captains of the British Indiamen, which 

 leave Canton in the winter season, are unable to obtain any 

 which have been proved to be of the more desirable kinds. 

 Their purchases are necessarily made from the stock brought 

 into the market in the manner above mentioned, in which the 

 varieties most wanted are either very rare, or only sold to 

 the Chinese ; and are, besides, not very easily distinguishable 

 whilst divested of their foliage; so that the living plants which 

 do arrive in England, usually turn out to be the sort which 

 we have had here longest as well as in most abundance, and 

 which it may be presumed is the most common in China, or 

 at least at Canton. 



At the time when the Moutans blossom in the Chinese 

 gardens, the officers of the East India Company are absent 

 at Macao, to which place they remove after the departure of 



