The plant whose leaves yield the tea of commerce is variously termed Camellia Theifera; Thea Sinensis; or Chinensis; Thea Assamica; Thea Bohea and Thea Viridis, according to its origin, variety of the writer's fancy. While the real character of the East Indian or Assam tea plant has been recognized by botanical science less than seventy years, and the Chinese tea plant has probably been utilized for fifteen hundred years, it will be more convenient to begin our remarks with the later discovery. Writers at the present time continue to describe the tea plant as a "shrub" of about six feet in height. The indigenous tea plant of India, which is believed to be the parent stock of Chinese tea plants, is a tree, growing to a height of 20 to 35 feet with a trunk 8 to 10 inches in diameter, and bearing leaves of a lively green, 8 to 9 inches in length and 4 inches in breadth. The leaves are much more delicate in texture than those of Chinese plants, which hardly reach 4 inches in length, and the former contain a larger percentage of the invaluable alkaloid, Theine. Dr. Chas. U. Sheppard, in a historical sketch of Tea Culture in South Carolina, tells us that a tea tree which was planted planted by Michaux, about 15 miles from Charleston, and about the year 1800, had attained a height of say 15 feet when he saw it a few years ago. The native Indian tree is, however, not now utilized upon a commercial scale for tea purposes. The reason for neglecting the native plant we do not find definitely stated, but infer from several sources of information that it is owing to the extreme delicacy of constitution of the Assam plant, its demands for excessive moisture and high temperature, and its preference for partial shade, evidenced by its growing in the jungle and under other trees. Possibly a difficulty in restraining its luxuriant habit of growth is also involved. However this may be, the commercial tea of Ceylon and India is a product of a cultivated cross between the tender native Indian and the hardier Chinese tea plants, in which the Assam strain bears the proportion of one half to two thirds. A more robust plant under cultivation is the result, and one which preserves the best qualities of both varieties. This cross is usually termed a hybrid.