CHAPTER XVI

TEA AND COTTON

THE St. John's-wort tribe is so called because they blossom about St. John's Day, at Midsummer. The largest species is called Park leaves, and raises its handsome head above a long straight stem, clothed with leaves in regular alternate pairs, in almost every shrubbery; the next largest, named Tutsan, from the French word Toutesain, all-heal, grows wild by the sides of woods, and has a blossom about the size of a primrose. The lesser kinds grow on every hedgerow, heath, and wood. All have brilliant yellow blossoms, divided into five petals, a larger swelling germ, crowned by three stigmas, and an infinite number of stamens, joined together at the bottom in little tufts or bunches, so that you cannot pull out one without the rest of the family. They hold together, as the old man in the fable taught his sons to do by the example of the faggot of sticks; and the hair-like filaments crowned with dots spread out their multitude like a glory round the flower. The fruit is a red berry of a conical shape, which you may often see in the tutsan, and which stains the fingers so red that the old English name of the plant was man's-blood. The leaves are very curious, as you will see if you hold them up to the light. They are full

brilliant, family are annual; not one has wood or bark like a tree, and scarcely one genus will live out of temperate climates.

Here follows another tribe, called from mignonette, the very name of which means a little darling.

It is very sweet, and its pale subdued tints serve to set off gayer flowers, just as a quiet-coloured dress looks well with a brighter ribbon; and it is much loved by Londoners, who grow it in long green boxes outside their windows. Look at some pretty verses about it in Moral Songs. It has its seeds in very curiously-shaped vessels like little urns. There are two sorts of wild mignonette: one is like the garden kind, only larger and scentless, called by the name of woad, the plant with which the ancient Britons used to dye themselves. The other is yellower and in longer spikes, and is called Dyer's Rocket, yellowweed.

CHAPTER XVI

TEA AND COTTON

THE St. John's-wort tribe is so called because they blossom about St. John's Day, at Midsummer. The largest species is called Park leaves, and raises its handsome head above a long straight stem, clothed with leaves in regular alternate pairs, in almost every shrubbery; the next largest, named Tutsan, from the French word Toutesain, all-heal, grows wild by the sides of woods, and has a blossom about the size of a primrose. The lesser kinds grow on every hedgerow, heath, and wood. All have brilliant yellow blossoms, divided into five petals, a larger swelling germ, crowned by three stigmas, and an infinite number of stamens, joined together at the bottom in little tufts or bunches, so that you cannot pull out one without the rest of the family. They hold together, as the old man in the fable taught his sons to do by the example of the faggot of sticks; and the hair-like filaments crowned with dots spread out their multitude like a glory round the flower. The fruit is a red berry of a conical shape, which you may often see in the tutsan, and which stains the fingers so red that the old English name of the plant was man's-blood. The leaves are very curious, as you will see if you hold them up to the light. They are full

of very small dots, just like little holes, indeed one kind is actually called the perforated St. John's-wort; but these are not really holes, only little vessels filled with oil, which gives out a strong smell if you rub the leaf.

This perforated St. John's-wort is a very pretty plant, much more slender and graceful than the square St. John'swort known by its very hard square stem. The small upright kind is the especial beauty, growing on heaths, like a little golden star or spangle, on its slight crimson stem; perhaps, if late in autumn, bearing a small red fruit. Nor is the creeping kind to be despised, as it twists and stretches over wettish places, though not so deep in the bog as the next sort, the marsh St. John's-wort, which never opens its blossoms wide, and has rough leaves, so unlike the other kinds that it is not easy at first to tell that it belongs to the same genus, all the rest having their character so strongly marked.

Perhaps you have seen the handsome red or white waxy camellia flower grown in greenhouses. It gives name to the tribe to which belongs our most useful drink. Every one knows whence tea comes, so I will not stop to tell that. It is a shrubby plant, with a pale pink blossom, and is grown in great plantations. The young leaves, when they are first put out in spring, are gathered carefully, and no one is allowed to use these but the Emperor himself. The next crop the Chinese keep for themselves, and only sell us the coarser leaves, which they gather at the time of the grand stripping of the trees. Then not a leaf is left, and as some of the trees grow wild, out of reach on the mountains, the cunning Chinese have a way of getting at them which you would never have guessed at. There are plenty of monkeys in those hills, and the Chinese go out and pelt them with sticks

and stones, which so provokes them that they break off boughs of the tea trees to return the compliment to the men, who gladly pick up the prize and strip off the leaves.

The leaves are brought into the shrivelled, twisted state in which we have them by being laid on hot plates over a furnace. It has always been a question whether the green and black teas are really different sorts, or whether the green is coloured by being dried on copper plates, or by some colouring matter. I believe the truth is that there is a real green kind, but that it is rare, and they generally sell us the false, painted green tea.

For their own use they make the tea up into balls, or faggots of small twisted sticks, and instead of using a teapot they put one of these little parcels into a cup, and pour boiling water over it. The cups are often of beautiful porcelain, each in a filigree gold and silver case. They use no milk nor sugar with it, and a tray of these pretty little cups of strong tea is carried round to welcome every visitor.

As to the old tea leaves, they make them up in the shape of bricks, and sell them to the Tartars, and though this is poor stuff, it is the best the Tartars can get, and they are so fond of it as to be ready to take it in payment for anything they sell to the Chinese.

Then comes a tribe called the Mallow, which has all its stamens growing close round the pistil, joined in one. The largest of these that we often see is the tall holyoak, a grand-looking plant brought from China, and spiring up almost like a tree, with large leaves below, and handsome great, red, yellow, or white flowers on a long spike, or even of a very dark colour, which is sometimes called black. but only by way of a boast. I have