TEA AND THE TEA PLANT. 



75 



Burma and Shan leaf, but otherwise is very similar. I have not seen, however, 

 more than a few separated leaves of the Oolong plant and cannot be certain 

 regarding its identity. So far as I can judge it stands every chance of proving 

 a distinct and well-marked race, fully worthy of separate recognition. 



Bace 6, Yunan and Chinese. — Too little is known of the races of the tea 

 plant in China to allow of a classification being furnished similar to that given 

 for India. As already mentioned, one of the oldest botanical specimens extant 

 was procured from the Malabar coast of India some time between 1698 and 

 1702. Fortune, while he admits that he found this form occasionally all over 

 China, speaks of the country south of the Yang-tse-kiang as the region of Thea 

 viridis, the tea being shipped from Shanghai and Ningpo. In most herbaria 

 the plant is fairly well represented from China, but hy no means exhaustively 

 so, until in very recent times, more especially through Dr. Hem-y's collections. 

 Dr. Henry has studied the tea plant of the forests of Yunan, and his 

 specimens have been widely distributed in herbaria. He tells me that it is 

 a small, sparsely branched tree, met with under the dense shade of forests — 

 precisely the condition of the Indian truly wild forms. His No. 9,722, collected 

 south of the Red River, and absolutely wild in virgin forest at 7.000 feet in 

 altitude above the sea, as also his No. 10,377 (a), are both exactly intermediate in 

 type to the Burman and the Naga hill forms. But Dr. Henry also collected the 

 same plant in the province of Hupeh (No. 7,822) and Dr. Faber on Mount Omei, 

 Szechwan (No. 342), where it was regularly cultivated. Of his Ibang (Chinese 

 Shan States) sample (No. 13,183) Dr. Henry says it is gi'own for the manufacture 

 of the celebrated Pureh brick tea, the locality where, he is of opinion, tea 

 cultivation probably began m China. The leaves in this case are exceptionally 

 hairy. Fortune collected the var. viridis in Japan (Yeddo) in 1860. (Fig 8.) 



Yae. 3 BoHEA (see fig. 9) : Thea Bohea, Linn., Sp. PL, 1762,^. 734; also, 

 Herh., n. 152, The, Tja; WiUiayn ten Bhyne, Observ. de Frutice Thee, 1675, 

 apudBreijn, app. 9-17 ; Jacohus Breijn, PI. Exot., lQlS,pp. 111-15, 1. 112 {after 

 the jjlafe of W. ten Rhijne, made in Japan in 1675); Le Cornte {Nouv. Mem., 

 dc, 1692, i. 368), Tea Cultivation of Fii Kien ; Tee Sinensium, Bocc, 

 Museo PL Bar., 1697, 130-2, t. 94 {after Breijn) ; Thea, Kaempfer, Am. 

 Exot., 605-31 (1712), t. 695, ff. 1-2 {a 77iost admirable picture copied bij many 

 subsequent authors); Thea Bohea, Sill, Exot. Bot., 1759, t. 21; Lettsom, 

 Nat. Hist. Tea Tree, 1799, pL facing p. 41; Hayne, Gewdchse, vii. t. 28 

 {photographically reproduced, fig. 7) ; Bot. Mag., 1807, xxv. t. 998 {drawn from 

 plant grown at Kensington) ; Booth, Trans. Hort. Soc.Lond., 1830, 559; 

 Bein, Indust. of Japan, 1889, pp. 110-30, t. 1; Bohea Tea of Fortune and 

 others ; The Hybrid Tea of Indian tea-planters. (See figs. 9, 12, and 13.) 



A fairly large, much branched, vigorous growing bush, met with chiefly under 

 cultivation, in India entirely so. Leaves medium-sized, linear, oblong, thick, 

 smooth, leathery, often partially closed lengthwise on the upper surface (so as to 

 become concave, in place of convex, as in " Assam indigenous '"), and possessed 

 of 10 to 14 primary veins ; under sui-face speckled with what appears like 

 very minute shining scales embedded within the surface, or, when seen on very 

 di-y and old leaves, appearing on the apex of exceedingly minute elevated 

 warts. 



I am unable at present to establish the races of this plant that doubtless 

 exist, but if its history be correctly interpreted, by the commonly received 

 acceptation of its being a hybrid, it may have originated spontaneously in all 

 the tea districts of the world, or been distributed by seed from one country to 

 another under the belief that it was a distinct and valued race. In the Kew 

 Herbarium there are specimens of it from everj^ tea district in India. Perhaps 

 the oldest Indian-grown sample in existence is Griffith's China tea plant," a 

 specimen which bears the date of 1845. In the British Museiun there are 



