[ 44-8 ] 
tree ; and therefore afierts, that they are the fame. 
It is natural to fjppofe he compared them with the 
accurate drawings of the feeds of Kcempfer’s Fafi-no - 
> kty p. 794. that being the only place where the feeds 
of it are defcribed. 
In the very next paragraph Mr. Miller feems to 
forget, that from his own obfervations on the feeds 
of the China varnifh-tree, he has afferted it to be 
the Fafi-no -ki of Kcempfer ; but now he finds, in 
his memorandums, that thofe feeds were wedge- 
fhaped, and like the feeds of the beech-tree ; and 
that all the three feeds he received feemed to be in- 
clofed in one capfule : fo that now he is at a lofs 
what to call it ; and at the fame time fays I have 
been too haffy in calling it a Rhus. 
Mr. Miller goes on, and allows this China varnifh- 
tree changes to a purple in the autumn ; but not fo 
deep as the true varnitli-tree. I fuppofc he means, 
by this true varnifh-tree, the Carolina pennated Toxi- 
codendron ; for Kcempfer has not told us what co- 
lour the true varnifh-tree of Japan changes to in 
autumn. 
Rut this is no certain proof on either fide of the 
queftion, only a corroborating circumftance of the 
fpecies of a tree : nor fhould I have mentioned it, 
but for the manner in which Koempfer, with an 
imagination truly poetical, deferibes the autumnal 
beauty of his Fafi-?io-ki , or l'purious varnifh-tree. 
“ Rubore fuo autumnati qua viridantes fylvas fua- 
“ viter interpolat, intuentium oculos e longinquo in 
“ le convertit.” Even this defeription would make 
one fufpedt it is not the fame with the China varnifh- 
tree, which, I am informed, did not turn purplifh in 
the garden of the Britifli Mufeum till the firft froft 
came 
