The Chinese tea-plants are neat-growing shrubs, with bright glossy green leaves, not unlike those of the bay; or a more exact similitude will be found in the garden camellia, with the _leaves_ of which, however, many of our readers may not have acquaintance, although the _flowers_ are well known, being extensively used in decorating the female dress for the ball-room in the winter season. The tea-plants are nearly allied to the camellia, and belong to the same natural order: indeed, one species of the latter—the _Camellia sasanqua_ of botanists—is cultivated in the tea-grounds of China, on account of its beautiful flowers, which are said to impart fragrance and flavor to other teas. Comparatively few scientific naturalists have had sufficient opportunities of studying the tea-producing plants in their native _habitats_, or even in the cultivated grounds of China, and consequently a great difference of opinion has all along existed, as to whether tea is obtained from one, two, or more distinct species of _Thea_. This question is getting day by day more involved as new facts come to light; and, indeed, cultivation seems to have altered the original character of some forms of the plant so much, that the subject bids fair to remain an open question among European botanists for ages to come. The two tea-plants which have been long grown in British gardens, and universally supposed, until within the last few years, to be the only kinds in existence, are the _Thea bohea_ and the _Thea viridis_. The former was, until recently, very generally believed to produce the black tea of commerce, and the latter the green tea; but recent travelers have clearly shown that both _black_ and _green_ tea may be, and are, obtained from the same plant. The difference is caused by the mode of preparation; but it will be afterward seen that very important discrepancies occur between the accounts of this operation given by different observers. Certain it is, that the extreme caution with which the Chinese attempt to conceal a knowledge of their peculiar arts and manufactures from European visitors—and in none is their anxiety to do so more strikingly evinced than in the case of the culture and preparation of tea—tends greatly to frustrate the endeavors of the scientific traveler to acquire accurate information on this point.