i X 
FLORA 
or 
THE ISLAND OF HONGKONG. 
HISTOEICAL NOTICE. 
r 
Prior to the commencement of the seventeenth centnry, the voyages undertaken to Canton, 
in the interests of commerce, had contributed nothing to our knowledge of the Flora of the 
South of China. In 1630, hoAvever, Michael Boymius, who had resided in the Chinese 
empire as a Jesuit missionary, published at Vienna an account of some plants of that coun- 
try, accompanied by ill-executed coloured woodcuts, amongst which we find the first notice 
of the Lai-chi. Jacobus Boutins, who visited the East in the capacity of surgeon of a 
trading-vessel, described and figured various productions of these regions (including the 
Tea-plant) in Piso and Marcgraav's 'Natural History of India/ which appeai'cd at Amster-' 
dam in 1658. The port of Amoy and islands of Chusan, at both of which places the East 
India Company then had factories, were visited in 169S and 1700 by James Cunningham, 
who had received the appointment of surgeon at those stations. He transmitted a great 
number of the vegetable productions of Chusan (amongst others hitherto unknown was the 
Tallowy-tree, Siiili/i^ia schifera) to Plukenct and Petiver, by whom they were published. 
Half a century later, Peter Osbeck, chaplain on board a Swedish vessel, pubhshed an enter- 
taining work, entitled ' A Voyage to China and the East Indies,' which has been translated 
into English and other European languages, in which he paid much attention to Natural 
History, and gives plates of several new plants from the neighbourhood of Canton. Speci- 
mens of all he collected were furnished by him to Linnasns, by whom they were described. 
The next in order is Joao de Loureiro, a Portuguese priest, wlio resided more than thirty 
years as a missionary in Cochin-China, w^here, as in China, the Jesuits had acquired great 
reputation and influence by their skill in pure and applied mathematics and by their general 
knowledge, and where he had received the appointment of President of the Mathematical 
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