resembles the variety of the same name belonging to Thuya occidentalis; the latter is slightly whiter on both surfaces of the leaves.
Distribution, etc.
Thuya orientalis occurs wild in the mountains of north China. It is common in the hills west of Pekin, where Fortune[1] observed trees of a large size, 50 or 60 feet in height. Elsewhere in China it is only met with planted in cemeteries and temple grounds. It has been known to the Chinese from the earliest times as the Poh or Peh tree, and is mentioned in their classical books; it was planted around the graves of feudal princes, and its wood was used for making the coffins of great officials. The tree was introduced into Japan from China at an early period, probably like so many other Chinese plants, by the Buddhist missionaries. Japanese botanists are all agreed that it is not indigenous in Japan. Various other regions have been mentioned as being the home of Thuya orientalis, as Siberia, Turkestan, Himalayas, etc.; but specimens collected in these countries are undoubtedly from cultivated trees. The tree is mentioned by Gmelin in his Flora Siberica, i. 182 (1747); but only as occurring between Kiachta and Peking. Ledebour[2] denies its existence in any part of Siberia.
Thuya orientalis was first grown in Europe at Leyden, some time before 1737, when Linnæus[3] described the plant as Thuya strobilis uncinatis squamis reflexa acuminatis. Royen, who sent a specimen to Linnæus, mentions the species with considerable details in his account[4] of the plants that were cultivated at that time in the Botanic Garden at Leyden; but his promised account of the history of its introduction apparently never was published. It is possible that it was raised from seed sent home by the Dutch from Japan, as Kaempfer, who travelled in that country from 1690 to 1692, collected specimens of Thuya orientalis which are still preserved in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington.[5] Seeds were also soon afterwards sent to Paris by the missionaries in north China.[6] The earliest account of it in England occurs in a letter dated February 1, 1743, from the Duke of Richmond to Collinson, as follows:— "I am sorry to find by Miller that I am not likely to have the Chinese Thuya. I own, if it belonged to anybody that would sell it, I should be foolish enough to offer ten guineas for it, because it is the only one in England that can match that which I have already." It was cultivated early by Miller[7] in the Physic Garden at Chelsea.
Thuya orientalis never attains in this country any considerable dimensions. It ripens good seed; and at Kew, on a wall near the Director's office, may be seen a
- ↑ Yedo and Peking, 307, 382 (1863). Fortune supposed that the wild tree in north China was distinct from that cultivated near Shanghai; but there is no doubt that the trees, which attain a great size in the hills west of Peking, are ordinary Thuya orientalis.
- ↑ Comment, in Gmelini Fl. Sibericam, 60 (1841).
- ↑ Hort. Cliff. 449 (1737).
- ↑ Flora Leydensis Prodromus, 87 (1740).
- ↑ I have seen these specimens. See Salisbury, Coniferous Plants of Kaempfer, in Jour. Science and Arts, ii. 313 (1817). Kaempfer does not mention the plant in his Amœnitates Exoticæ.
- ↑ See Miller, Gard. Dict. ed. 6 (1752), and ed. 8 (1768), sub "Thuya."
- ↑ Cf. Aiton, Hort. Kew. iii. 371 (1789).
