98 DR. H. F. HANCE’S SUPPLEMENT TO 
where* his convietion that the indigenous vegetation of Hong- 
kong, which owed its immunity from destruction to the former 
sparse population of the island, is identical with that once exist- 
ing throughout the whole south of the empire, but of which, with 
the exception of herbaceous plants, only scanty vestiges now re- 
main, owing to the avidity with which every woody plant is sought 
after and cut down for fuel. He hopes shortly to be able to give 
alist, with their respective habitats, of all the plants not included 
in the * Flora Hongkongensis ' or the present supplement, which, 
though not heretofore recorded as natives of China, have been 
met with by Mr. Sampson or others on the mainland in the pro- 
vince of Kwangtung, and which he has himself had occasion to 
examine and verify. With the data thus furnished, and the 
various contributions of the writer during the past nine years to 
the Paris ‘ Annales des Sciences Naturelles’ and Dr. Seemann’s 
* Journal of Botany,’ he believes it may be said that our know- 
ledge of the South-Chinese flora and of its geographical relations 
will be scarcely, if at all, less complete than that which we possess 
of many parts of our East-Indian territories. 
In the following pages those species actually added to the flora 
are numbered consecutively; the remainder, including those 
which, regarded as varieties by Mr. Bentham, are here assigned 
specific rank (e. g. Scleria radula) are here marked with an 
asterisk. 
British Vice-Consulate, 
Whampoa, 22 June, 1871. 
]. Ranunculus holophyllus, Hance in Ann. Sc. Nat. Par. ser. 4, xv. 220. 
Scarce, in moist cultivated ground. Allied to R. sceleratus 
Linn., and R. micranthus, Nutt. ; agreeing with the former in its 
elongated heads of fruit, with the latter in its pubescence an 
slender pedicels. Not known from elsewhere. 
2. Ranunculus sceleratus, Linn.; Bab. Man. Brit. Bot. ed. 6.9. | 
Though 1 do not happen to have a Hongkong specimen of this 
by me at present, there is no doubt it is a native ; and it is a COD 
mon spring weed on the neighbouring continent in paddy-fields 
and kitchen-gardens. Spread over the whole of Europe, most 
parts of Temperate and some of Tropical Asia, Northern Africa, 
and North America; but not occurring in either Australia or New 
Zealand. 
* Seem. Journ. Bot. viii. 274. 
