532 Description of the Species of Camellia and Thea. 



this statement, however, it is proper to mention, that for the 

 greater part of this fine collection the Society is indebted 

 to the liberality of several of its members, who have de- 

 voted much of their time and attention to the cultivation 

 of Camellias, and who obligingly presented plants of such 

 varieties as they possessed ; some that could not otherwise 

 be obtained were purchased ; and the remainder is the re- 

 sult of importations made at different times from China of 

 plants that were procured through the friendly agency of 

 John Reeves, Esq. 



Forty years ago none of the Double Camellias had been 

 seen in a living state in this country, although a few of them 

 were noticed by K^empfer in his Amcenitates Exoticae, pub- 

 lished in 1712. The Double White and Double Striped 

 varieties were the first that were introduced, having been 

 brought from China in 1792 by Captain Connor, of the Car- 

 natic East Indiaman, for John Slater, Esq. of the India 

 House. Two years afterwards the Double Red was imported 

 by Sir Robert Preston, Bart, of Valleyfield, who then 

 lived at Woodford in Essex. From that period no addi- 

 tions were made until 1806, when the variety known as the 

 Buff, or Lady Hume's Blush, was imported for Sir Abraham 

 Hume, Bart, and the Waratah, or Anemone-flowered, for the 

 Royal Garden, Kew. 



In 1808, the Myrtle-leaved Red, and Middlemist's Red, 

 were added by importation to the Kew collection ; and the 

 Semi-double Red to that of the Hon. Charles Greville, 

 at Paddington. These, with the Red Pseony-flowered, and 

 the Pompone, or Kew Blush, which are supposed to have 

 been introduced about the year 1810, the former for Charles 



