122 WILSON EXPEDITION TO CHINA 
obtuse. The peduncles in No. 3721 are 6-8 mm. long, in No. 2022 the pedicels are 
more or less separate so that the flowers are pedicelled and the common peduncle 
is sometimes very short, similar to the inflorescence of A. biflora Turczaninow. 
The leaves are also very variable; in No. 2021 they are narrowly lanceolate and 
quite entire, and in No. 4210 lanceolate-oblong and nearly entire, while in No. 
2022 and in Purdom’s No. 320 at least part of the leaves are elliptic and coarsely 
toothed and in No. 4492 the leaves are oblong-lanceolate and almost all serrate. 
The flowers are fragrant, the tube nearly tubular and the limb spreading. 
Abelia umbellata, n. comb. 
Linnaea umbellata Graebner & Buchwald in Bot. Jahrb. XXIX. 143 (1900). 
Western Hupeh: Hsing-shan Hsien, woodlands, alt. 1200-1800 
m., June, Nov. 1907 (No. 607); without locality, June 1900 (Veitch 
Exped. No. 922). Szech’uan: A. Henry (No. 7083, type). 
The corolla, not described by Graebner, is narrowly funnel-form or nearly tubu- 
lar, white, 15-18 mm. long, with spreading limb, 3 mm. long; the style slightly 
exceeds the tube and the stamens just reach the mouth; the sepals are nearly as 
long as the tube or somewhat shorter. 
The determination of Wilson’s collection and other unnamed material in the 
herbarium of the Arnold Arboretum led me to study all the Asiatic species, and in 
consequence to a rearrangement of the species, differing in several points from the 
grouping as proposed by Maximowiez (in Mél. Biol. XII. 473-480), Zabel (in Mitt. 
Deutsch. Dendr. Ges. Yl. 32-34) and Graebner (in Bot. Jahrb. XXIX. 120-145). 
To show clearly the arrangement I have adopted, a synopsis of the whole genus 
is appended here. 
SYNOPSIS OF THE GENUS ABELIA. 
Abelia has been by several writers united with Linnaea and treated as a sub- 
genus of the latter, but there does not seem to be a very convincing reason for the 
union of these two genera; there are no intermediate forms, and sufficient char- 
acters in the ovary and the fruit, as well as in the calyx and in the corolla and in 
the habit of the plants to keep Abelia as a distinct genus. At present 27 species 
of Abelia may be distinguished which can be divided into two sections well marked 
by differences in the vegetative and reproductive parts and easily recognized 
even without flowers or fruits. The first section Euabelia, with A. chinensis as 
the type, is characterized by the petioles not being dilated at the base and not 
enclosing the winter-buds, by the absence of recurved hispid hairs on the young 
branchlets, the lighter or darker brown color of the bark separating in flakes, the 
more or less funnel form or nearly campanulate shape of the corolla and the 
terete or nearly terete akenes. The second section, Zabelia, which I take 
pleasure in associating with the name of H. Zabel, who first proposed a good 
division of the genus into sections, is characterized by the petioles being 
dilated at the base with the opposite ones connate and covering the winter-buds 
and persistent on the branchlets of the previous year, by the young branch- 
lets being furnished with reflexed hispid hairs or rarely glabrous, by the tubular 
corolla with spreading limb, by the stamens not exceeding the tube and the 
scarcely exserted style, and by flattened akenes usually more or less curved. The 
several subsections or series as here limited have well defined geographical ranges; 
the first, Serratae, is Japanese, the second and third, Uniflorae and Rupestres, range 
