A patch of indigenous with a mature flush on it is a pretty sight. The plants all appear as if crowned with gold (they are truly so if other advantages exist), and are a great contrast to the China variety if it can also be seen near.
I have now, I think, pointed out the leading characteristics of the two original varieties of the Tea plant, and it stands to reason no one would grow the China who could get indigenous. But the truth is, a pure specimen of either is rare. The plants between indigenous and China are called “hybrids.” They were in the first instance produced by the inoculation, when close together, of the pollen of one kind into the flower of the other, and the result was a true hybrid, partaking equally of the indigenous and China characteristics; but the process was repeated again and again between the said hybrid and an indigenous or China, and again later between hybrids of different degrees, so that now there are very many varieties of the Tea plant--100 or even more--and no garden is wholly indigenous or wholly China. So close do the varieties run, no one can draw the line and say where the China becomes a hybrid, the hybrid an indigenous. Though as a rule the young leaves are light green or dark green, as the plant approaches the indigenous or China in its character, there are a certain class of bushes all hybrid, whose young leaves have strong shades of crimson and purple. Some even are quite red, others quite purple. These colours do not last as the leaf hardens, and the matured leaves of these plants do not differ from others. Plants with these coloured leaves are prolific.
The nearer each plant approaches the indigenous, the higher its class and excellence, _ergo_ one plantation is composed of a much better class of plants than another. Had China seed never been introduced into India, a very different state of things would have existed now. The cultivation would not have been so large, but far more valuable. The propagation and rearing of the indigenous, as observed, is difficult; the China is much hardier while young. So difficult is it to rear successively the _pure_ indigenous, perhaps the best plan, were it all to come over again, would be to propagate a high-class hybrid and distribute it, never allowing any China seed or plants to leave the nursery, which should have been a Government one. But we must take things as they are. The Government nurseries in the Himalayas and the Dehra Dhoon (there have never been any elsewhere, and worse sites could not have been chosen) were planted entirely with China seeds, the seedlings distributed all over the country, and thus the mischief was done. The Indian Tea is vastly superior to the Chinese, and commands a much higher price at home, but it is still very inferior to what it would have been, had not Chinese seed been so recklessly imported and distributed over the country.