C 527 ] 
After this, in the latter end of January, 1766, 
Mr. John Bartram, the king’s botanift tor the Flo- 
ridas, difcovered it on the banks of the river St. John, 
in Eaft Florida, as appears from his description of if, 
and the drawing of a feed-veffel, with fome of the 
leaves, which he fent to our late worthy member 
Peter Collinfon, Efq; who was fo kind as to com- 
municate them to me. Mr. Bartram’s defcription of 
it, as it appears in hisjournal up the river St. John’s, 
publifhed by Dr. Stork, in his account of Eaft Flori- 
da, is as follows : 
“ Near here my fon found a lovely fweet tree, 
“ with leaves like the fweet bay, which fmelled like 
“ffaffafras, and produces a very ftrange kind of feed- 
“ pop j but all the feed was fhed, the fevere frcji 
“ had not hurt it, fome of them grew near twenty 
“ feet high, a charming bright evergreen -aro- 
“ made.” 
This obfervation of Mr. Bartram, relating to its 
bearing a fevere froft, may afford us a ufeful hint in 
the cultivation of this tree, efpecially as I am con- 
vinced, from repeated accounts of the weather in 
Weft Florida ; that the froft is much more intenfe 
there, from whence thofe plants, which you now 
have in vigour, were brought, than in Eaft-Florida; 
fo that the experiment is well worth making with 
one of them, to fee how far it will ftand the feverity 
of our winters. Should it fucceed, it would be a very 
great acquifition to our gardeners, and be highly orna- 
mental to our plantations of evergreens. 
The medicinal properties of this tree are certainly 
worth enquiring into. The leaves afford a moft 
agreeable bitter. A fprig of it fet to putrify in a phial 
of 
