high, placed in a damp stove, produced its fine panicles of blos- 
soms in December, 1855 ; but, probably owing to the unfavourable 
season of the year, the flowers dropped off, almost as fast as they 
were developed, and bore no fruit. From dried specimens that 
had flowered at Hongkong in the Governor’s garden, we can make 
up the deficiency as far as the immature fruit is concerned. 
I must, however, be allowed to state that the plant is only 
here provisionally placed in Ara/ia. The character of the several 
genera of Araliacee are universally acknowledged to be very 
imperfect. A notice has been recently given, in the excellent 
‘ Bulletin de la Société Botanique de France,’ September, 1854, 
of an “ Esquisse d’une Monographie des Araliacees, par MM. J. 
Decaisne et Planchon,” published in the ‘ Revue Horticole,’ n° 
du 16 Mars, 1854, pp. 104-109, a work to which unfortunately 
I have no access. ‘The Bulletin indeed contains an enumeration 
of the nineteen genera into which the Order is divided by these 
gentlemen ; but, though accompanied by certain characters, they 
are so brief that 1 can come to no satisfactory conclusion on the 
suitableness of any to our plant. From 4ralia, as hitherto defined 
by authors, it differs in having two instead of five styles, and 
might hence be ranked with Panaz : but Aralia, as characterized 
by MM. Decaisne and Planchon, should have two to five styles ; it 
should however further have a calyx of five teeth (consequently five, 
and imbricated, petals), and the genus includes herbs, inhabiting 
temperate regions, with compound leaves ; characters at variance 
with the species now before us. A well-grown plant of this must 
have a fine appearance, as described, in Hongkong—“ seven feet 
high, with a circumference, of its terminal branches, of twenty 
feet, and throwing out twelve to fourteen panicles three feet long, 
drooping like magnificent plumes in regular form over the large 
dark palmate leaves.” It seems to be a native exclusively of the 
Island of Formosa; and no botanist has ever seen the plant in 
its native locality. By the untiring exertions of Sir John Bowring 
he induced the Chinese traders to procure living plants, when 
on their voyage to that island for the cargo of stems to make 
their paper. 
Descr. Plant unarmed, five to seven feet high. Stem branch- 
ing above, and from two to three, or at most four inches in dia- 
meter, forming very little wood, filled with the most exquisitely 
white pith, of which the famous “ Rice-paper”’ of China is made, 
as detailed in the journal above quoted. Young leaves and 
branches and whole inflorescence entirely covered with copious, 
stellated, more or less thick and deciduous down; upper surface 
of the foliage at length glabrous. Fully grown Jeaves sometimes 
a foot long, cordate, five- to seven-lobed; lobes acute, serrated, 
sinus very deep; texture soft and rather flaccid. Petioles very 
