180 
WANDERINGS IN CHINA. 
Chap. XI. 
plants should this time have blooms upon them. One 
morning, however, as I was going out into the country, 
a short distance from Shanghae, I was surprised at 
meeting a garden labourer with a load of Moutans all 
in full flower, which he was taking towards the city for 
sale. The flowers were very large and fine, and the 
colours were dark ^purples, lilacs, and deep reds, kinds 
of which the very existence had been always doubted in 
England, and which are never seen even at Canton. 
Two English gentlemen, who were excellent Chinese 
scholars, being with me at the time, we soon found out 
the name of the Moutan district ; and from the state of 
the roots in the man's basket I was quite certain that 
the plants had not been more than an hour or two out of 
the ground, and that consequently the place where they 
were grown could not be more than six or eight miles 
from Shanghae ; a surmise which I afterwards found to 
be perfectly correct. This was doubtless the place where 
my nursery friend had procured his plants in the pre- 
vious autumn, and where he would have gone again had 
I not been lucky enough to find that I could easily go 
there myself Indeed, I afterwards discovered that there 
was no Moutan country in the vicinity of Soo-chow, 
having met a man from that place in the Shanghae 
district, where he had come for the express purpose of 
buying Tree Pseonies. I now went into the Moutan 
district daily during the time the different plants were 
coming into bloom, and secured some most striking and 
beautiful kinds for the Horticultural Society. 
Being now well acquainted with the country in the 
immediate vicinity of Shanghae, I was anxious to extend 
