96 DR. H. F. HANCE'S SUPPLEMENT TO 
him clear of extreme opinions, the excellent plan adopted, of 
indicating the geographical range of each species, interests him in 
those problems of plant-distribution which are so intimately con- 
nected with the great and contested questions of the origin, dis- 
persion, and variation of living organisms. 
During the ten years that have passed by since its appearance, 
a number of species (representing rather more than 7 per cent., 
or one fourteenth of the actual number hitherto recorded) have 
been added to the flora; and the writer believes that he is per- 
forming a useful task in bringing these together in the form of a 
supplement, indicating, so far as he is able, their geographical 
distribution, noting at the same time such rectifications or 
changes of nomenclature in previously known species as subse- 
quent researches have rendered necessary or desirable, and adding 
here and there critical or other observations of his own. In some 
instances he has ventured to express dissent from Mr. Bentham's 
views, assuredly not in any spirit of presumption, but because it 
is not always possible to relinquish one's own opinions in defer- 
ence to any authority however high. Had the distinguished 
author himself had leisure to undertake this task, the writer 
would never have ventured on it; but the enormous labour in- 
volved in the preparation of the ‘Genera Plantarum’ and the 
‘Flora Australiensis’ has for some years past entirely diverted 
Mr. Bentham’s attention from Chinese botany. More than 
twenty years’ constant study of the flora of the island and adja- 
cent continent on the part of the writer may be held to confer 
on him some qualification; and the circumstance that almost 
every new plant detected in Southern China within the past ten 
years has been described by himself, rendering the citation of his 
own name frequently necessary, has given an unavoidably egotis- 
tical appearance to the following pages. Residing at a distance 
from any large centre of civilization, and deprived of the opportu- 
nity of consulting extensive libraries or obtaining the advice of 
more experienced botanists, he has necessarily laboured under 
many disadvantages; but he can conscientiously state that he 
has spared no pains to render the following enumeration as com- 
plete and trustworthy as possible; and he desires particularly to 
say that in no single instance has he quoted a botanical work on 
the authority of others, every reference, whether to text or plates, 
having been personally verified. 
The species new to the flora of Hongkong enumerated in the 
