Vill HISTORICAL NOTE. 
To these proposals the Council agreed, and Parts 1 and 2 of 
the Enumeration were issued in 1886. Copies of these and sub- 
sequent ones were freely distributed amongst English residents 
in China, with the result of inducing many to assist in the work 
of collecting specimens. Amongst the earlier was Dr. Henry, 
at the time an officer in the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs. 
Down to the time of his leaving China in 1900, the collections 
made by this indefatigable botanist reached 15,700 numbers, 
each represented by numerous duplicates and amounting in 
all to some 150,000 sheets. Henry’s collections revealed the 
existence of a flora of surprising and unexpected richness, and 
raised problems of geographical distribution of the highest 
interest. 
The Committee had hoped that the Catalogue they contem- 
plated might be contained in a single volume of the Society's 
Journal. But it speedily became clear that it would far execed 
those limits. lt was further evident that the whole undertaking 
would be more costly and laborious than was originally con- 
templated. In addition to three grants amounting in all to £700 
obtained from the Government Grant Committee of the Royal 
Society, further aid amounting to £175 was therefore obtained 
from the Dr:tish Association, and progress reports were presented 
to that body in 1887, 1888, and 1859. "The tota! sum received 
and expended by the Committee on the undertaking up to 1891 
amounted to £875. 
In 1890 Mr. Hemsley was appointed to the post of Principal 
Assistant in the Herbarium of the Royal Botanie Gardens, Kew, 
and his official duties precluded his devoting himself any longer 
to the work. The completion therefore only became possible by 
the cooperation, under Mr. Tlemsley’s gencral supervision, of 
various botanists whose names stand at the heads of their several 
contributions. From this point onwards the cost of printing and 
publication has been exclusively borne by the Linnean Society. 
During their lifetime (for both unhappily passed away during 
the progress of the work) the Committee met with the kindest 
sympathy and assistance from M. C. J. Maximowiez of the 
Académie Impériale of St. Petersburg, who had long been engaged 
on the elaboration of the collections made by Russian travellers 
in China, and from M. Franchet of the Muséum d'Histoire 
Naturelle at Paris, who was occupied in describing and publishing 
the extremely rich. collections made hy the French missionaries 
in Yunnan. 
