which we had not an opportunity.of inspecting for descrip- 
tion, after Mr. Edwards had drawn it. It is of quick 
growth, attaining the height of about 8 feet, smaller in all 
parts than japonica, but larger than TuzA, with round branches 
of a brownish red colour, deciduously villous, pliant, and 
weak. The number of petals is very variable, as well as 
the indentation of their circumference. We have extracted 
the following notice of it from Sir George Staunton’s ac-. 
count of Lord Macartney’s embassy to China. ‘A plant. 
“« very like the tea flourished, at this time, on the sides and 
“the very tops of mountains, where the soil consisted of 
“little more than fragments of stone, crumbled into a sort: 
“of coarse earth by the joint action of the sun and rain, 
“ The Chinese call this plant cha-whaw, or flower of tea, on 
“account of the resemblance of one to the other, and be- 
* cause its: petals, as well as the entire flowers of arabian 
“ Jessamine (the subject of the first article of the present 
* work), are sometimes mixed among the teas, in order to 
“ increase their fragrance. This plant, the cha-whaw, is 
“the Camellia sasanqua of the botanists, and yields a nut, 
“ from whence is expressed an esculent oil, equal to the 
*“ best which comes from Florence. It is cultivated on this 
‘account in vast abundance; and is particularly valuable 
“< from the facility of its culture, in situations fit for little 
“else.” We cannot help suspecting that the Tura oleosa 
of Loureiro, which he tells us grows wild about Can- 
ton, is the same plant, although he calls its peduncles three- 
flowered, probably meaning that they grow three together; 
a circumstance that does not square with Thunberg’s ac- 
count of Sasangua, nor with the figure in Sir George Staun- 
ton’s work, nor with the plant at Mr. Griffin’s; yet we 
were told, that at Sir Tédeok Banks’s, two and three flowers 
were certainly produced from the axils of some of the leaves. 
Loureiro says the oil is used for lamps, as well as for culi- 
nary purposes; but that it is inferior to olive-oil. The plant 
belongs to the greenhouse, and will soon be common ; but 
is far inferior to japonica in beauty. Thunberg says that the 
matt women use a decoction of the leaves to wash thein 
air, 
