CiiAP. XV. ELACK AND GREEN TEAS FROM SAME PLANT. 233 
The plant in cultivation about Canton, from which 
the Canton teas are made, is known to botanists as the 
Thea hohea, while the more northern variety, found in 
the green-tea country, has been called Thea viridis. 
The first appears to have been named upon the supposition 
that all the black teas of the Bohea mountains were 
obtained from this species, and the second was called 
viridis because it furnished the green teas of comm.erce. 
These names seem to have misled the public, and hence 
many persons, until a few years back, firmly believed 
that black tea could be made only from Thea bohea, and 
green tea only from Thea viridis. 
In the edition of my 'Wanderings in China ' published 
in 1846 I made some observations upon the plants from 
which tea is made in different parts of China. While I 
acknowledged that the Canton plant, known to botanists 
as Thea bohea, appeared distinct from the more northern 
one called Thea viridis, I endeavoured to show that 
both black and green teas could be made from either, 
and that the difference in the appearance of these teas, 
in so far as colour was concerned, depended upon 
manipulation, and upon that only. In proof of this 
I remarked that the black-tea plant found by me near 
Foo-chow-foo, at no great distance from the Bohea hills, 
appeared identical with the green-tea plant of Chekiang. 
These observations were met by the objection, that, 
although I had been in many of the tea districts near 
the coast, yet I had not seen those greater ones inland 
which furnish the teas of commerce. And this was per- 
fectly true. The same objection can hardly be urged 
now, however, as I have visited both the green-tea 
