TEA-TREE of New Zealand, is a species of myrtle, of which an infusion was drunk by Captain Cook's people in their voyages round the world. Its leaves were finely aromatic, astringent, and had a particular pleasant flavour at the first infusion; but this went off at the next filling up of the tea-pot, and a great degree of bitterness was then extracted; for which reason it was never suffered to be twice infused. In a fine soil in thick forests this tree grows to a considerable size; sometimes 30 or 40 feet in height, and one foot in diameter. On a hilly and dry exposure it degenerates into a shrub of five or six inches; but its usual size is about eight or ten feet high, and three inches in diameter. In that case its stem is irregular and unequal, dividing very soon into branches, which arise at acute angles, and only bear leaves and flowers at top. The flowers are white, and very ornamental to the whole plant.
Mr White, in his Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales, mentions a shrub which he calls a tea-tree merely from its being used by the convicts as a succedaneum for tea; for he had not seen the flower, nor did he know to what genus it belonged. It is a creeping kind of a vine, running to a great extent along the ground; the stalk slender; the leaf not so large as the common bay leaf; the taste sweet, exactly like the liquorice root of the shops.