NEW-JERSEY TEA, in botany: A genus of the monogynia order, belonging to the pentandria clas of plants; and in the natural method ranking under the 43rd order, Dumosa. There are five petals, pouched and arched. The fruit is a dry, trilocular and trispermous berry. There are three species, of which the most remarkable is the Americanus, a native of most parts of North America, from whence great plenty of the seeds have been imported into Europe. In England, this plant seldom rises more than three feet high. The stem, which is of a pale-brown colour, sends out branches from the bottom. These are thin, flexible, and of a reddish colour, which may occasioned this tree to go by the name of Red Twig. The leaves which ornament these branches stand on reddish pedicles, about half an inch in length. They are oval, serrated, pointed, about two inches and a half long, are proportionably broad, and have three nerves running lengthwise. From the footstalks to the point they are of a light green colour, grow irregularly on the branches, and not opposite by pairs, as has been affected. They are late in the spring before they shoot. The flowers grow at the ends of the twigs in clusters; they are of a white colour, and when in blow give the shrub a most beautiful appearance. Indeed, it seems to be almost covered with them, as there is usually a cluster at the end of nearly every twig; and the leaves which appear among them serve as ornaments only, like myrtle in a distant nosegay: nature however has denied them smell. This tree will be in blow in July; and the flowers are succeeded by small brownish fruit, in which the seeds will sometimes ripen in England.

This plant is propagated by layering; or from seeds sown in pots of compost, consisting of two parts virgin earth well tempered and one part sand, about a quarter of an inch deep; being equally careful to defend the young seedlings from an extremity of cold in winter, as from the parching drought of the summer months. The best time of layering them is in the summer, just before they begin to flower: At that time lay the tender twigs of the spring shoots in the earth, and nip off the end which would produce the flowers. By the autumn twelvemonth some of them will be rooted. At the stools, however, the plants should remain until the spring, when they should be taken off, and the best rooted and the strongest may be planted in the nursery-way, or in a dry soil and well sheltered place, where they are to remain; while the bad-rooted ones and the weakest should be planted in pots; and if these are plunged into a moderate warmth of dung, it will promote their growth, and make them good plants before autumn. In the winter they should be guarded against the frosts; and in the spring they may be planted out where they are to remain.