Island, says, ‘The plant has not been met with here, and 
could hardly be overlooked.” Aiton (Hort. Kew, ed. I. 
v. 313), who describes B. Hvansiana as B. discolor (quoting 
both Bot. Rep. and Bot. Mag.), gives China as the native 
country whence it was introduced in 1804 by the Hon. 
E. I. Company. 
Though retaining the name of B. sinensis for this plant, I 
do not feel sure that it is not B. Hvansiana of Andrews, from 
the figure of which it differs only in the deeply irregularly 
cut margins of the leaves. It is a widely diffused Chinese 
plant, there being specimens in Kew Herbarium from the 
neighbourhood of Peking, the provinces of Hupeh and 
Kwangtung, and Island of Formosa. 
Seeds of B. sinensis, collected in Yunnan by Dr. Henry, 
M.A., F.L.S., of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, 
were received at the Royal Gardens, Kew, in 1898 ; plants 
raised from which flowered in October of the following 
year in a greenhouse. 3 
Deser—Tuber brown, about the size of a large cob- 
nut, giving off copious long flexuous brown fibres from 
1ts crown. Stem one and a half to two feet high, rather 
slender, glabrous or sparsely pubescent, simple or sparingly 
branched, pale green. Leaves three to five inches long, more 
or less unequal-sided, ovate-cordate, acuminate, margin 
acutely lobulate, lobules coarsely, very irregularly, acutely 
serrate and serrulate, palmately five to nine-nerved at the 
base, thin, bright green above, paler, and often rose-colrd. 
beneath, with hairy veins, axils often bulbiferous; petiole 
one to two inches long; stipules ovate, or ovate-lanceolate, 
acuminate, green, Flowers moncecious, in axillary 22 
_ terminal peduncled cymes, male rather shortly pedicelled, 
female with much longer decurved pedicels. Male ft 
three-fourths of an inch in diam., bright rose-red ; sepals 
two, orbicular-ovate; petals two, very much smaller, oblong ; 
carey numerous, in avery shortly stipitate head, anthers 
‘ long, obtuse. Female jl. rather larger, sepals and petals 
ike the male, but petals broader, very unequal, or one 
only; styles short, stigmas reniform, papillose all over. 
vary with two short and one long wing; placentas bifid, 
arms ovuliferous on the outer surfaces.—J. D. H 
Fig. 1, Portion 
3, styles and sti 
he nat. size. 
of stem with stipules and bulbils; 2, staminal columns; 
gmas; 4, transverse section of ovary: all enlarged; 5, tuber of 
