HISTORICAL NOTE. 
Tire completion of an undertaking which has been on hand for 
some twenty years, has far exceeded the limits originally assigned 
to it, and must, I fear, have long ago exhausted the patience of 
the Linnean Society, invites, if it does not almost demand, a few 
words of explanation as to its history. 
As long ago as 1878 I was invited to deliver before the Royal 
Geographical Society a lecture which was in substance an attempt 
to review the knowledge existing at the time of the Earth's flora. 
When I came to the vast territory occupied in the Old World by 
the Chinese Empire, I could only quote the statement made four 
-ears earlier by the well-known botanist, the late Dr. Hanee :— 
« While M. Maximowiez's excellent and very complete * Index 
Flore Pekinensis provides a good catalogue of the flora of the 
Chinese metropolis and its vicinity, and Mr. Benthai's classical 
‘Flora Hongkongensis’ has acquainted us with the principal con- 
stituents of that of the extreme South-east of the Empire, nothing 
whatever of a scientific character has yet, to my knowledge, 
been written on the vegetation of the districts intermediate to 
those two points, which are separated by 17? of latitude, or of 
the various ports of trade along the coast or on the Yangtse.” 
It seemed to me that a beginning might at any rate be made 
to remedy this conspicuous defect in our knowledge of the vege- 
tation of the Old World, and that a list of Chinese plants which 
had actually been collected would throw some light on the 
character of the Chinese Flora and would afford a starting-point 
for fresh research. 
I accordingly in December 1883 made the following appeal 
to the Government Grant Committee of the Royal Society :— 
“To ask for appointment of a Committee to report on our 
present knowledge of the Flora of China. It is believed that 
LINN. JOURN.— BOTANY, VOL. XXXVI. b 
