one of the London meetings of the Horticultural Society. Early 
in 1857, it was described by Dr. Lindley as a new plant, under 
the name of Farfugium grande. But it is far from being a new 
species or anew genus. Itis a native indeed of Japan, and seems 
to have been known to all botanical visitors there from the days 
of Keempfer to the present time. 
Siebold says :—‘‘ Per totam Japoniam frequens, amat preecipue 
regionum altiorum locos humidos, rivulorum ripas umbrosas, 
rupes madidas,” etc. Elsewhere two varieties are particularly 
mentioned by him, one with curled leaves, the other the kind 
here figured “a feuilles tachetées d’or,” for this is not the nor- 
mal state, nor does it appear to be found wild in that condition. 
My native specimens from Ringgold and Rodgers’ United 
States North Pacific Exploring Expedition, are gathered by Mr. 
C. Wright in the Loo-Choo Islands. I refer Mr, Bentham’s 
Farfugium Kempferi hither with a mark of doubt. The speci- 
mens are from “among rocks, near the top of Victoria Peak, 
Hongkong,” C. Wilford; the leaves are more coriaceous, with 
much sharper and more distinct angles (generally five), and a 
very broad sinus; indeed the base of the leaf is often trans- 
versely truncated, so that the leaf then becomes semiorbicular, 
and the flowers are very much larger: in these particulars the 
species much more nearly approaches the Ligularia gigantea of 
Siebold and Zuccarini, /. c. tab. 36, natives of Niphon, whose 
leaves are stated to grow from five to eighteen feet long, with 
the blade five feet in diameter.* Nevertheless, since, when cul- 
tivated in gardens in the south of Japan it does not attain a 
greater height than three to four feet, and since in the general 
structure of the inflorescence and capitula and florets there is 
the closest similarity, the probability is that all these may prove 
to be varieties of one and the same species. 
Our plant which flowered at Kew in December, 1861, exhi- 
bited no appearance of bilabiate florets, distinctly observed by 
Dr. Lindley ; but, indeed, it is characteristic of the genus to have 
the radical florets “ligulate or biligulate.” 
oe 
Fig. 1. Floret of the disk. 2. Floret of the ray. 3, Hair from the pappus: — 
magnified. 
* Siebold tells us that the Japanese court artist, Hoksai, has represented in 
his Album, devoted to some remarkable natural history objects, a tuft of this 
plant, whose leaves (always radical) are sheltering many gardeners from the rain.” 
This kind Siebold took with him alive to Belgium, where it appeared in some 
catalogues, before 1830, under the name of Tussilago Japonica. 
