84 THE BEGONIE OF MEXICO 
while Acting-Governor of Hongkong, in the absence of Sir George 
Bonham. “It isa curious fact,” he says, “that Lin, the author of the 
Opium war, and undoubtedly the most remarkable of modern publie 
characters in China, was, when a youth, a manufacturer of artificial 
flowers from this Rice-paper material. I will send you the volume 
of the China branch of the Asiatic Society's Transactions, where you 
may (if you have time) honour some of my lucubrations with a mo- . 
ment’s attention."— Fortunate it is for literature and science when such 
enlightened men as the Messrs. Bowring are placed in official situa- - 
tions in our distant Colonies. : 
Tue BEGONIÆ or Mexico AND CENTRAL America. By Professor 
F. LIEBMANN. Communicated to the Association of Natural His- 
tory at Copenhagen, April 14th, 1852. Translated by Dr. Wat- 
LICH, V.P. Royal and Linn. Soc. 
Although nearly 160 species of Begonia are described, and many at- 
tempts have been made to discover characters by which the genus 
might be subdivided into others, they have hitherto been fruitless ; such 
being the sharply marked character of the genus, notwithstanding the 
habitual differences observable among the species, that a division of it 
of it would appear unnatural. Lindley has, it is true, tried to separate 
those with the outer and inner series of the perigonium differently 
coloured, under the name of Hupetalum ; but botanists seem not to have 
approved of the attempt. Gaudichaud, in the * Voyage de la Bonite, 
established the genus Meziera, differing by wingless, six-ribbed capsules ; 
but it is too little known as yet to decide with confidence on its stability. 
It must be recollected that wingless Begonia have been described before 
now, without detaching them from the genus ; f. i. B. aptera, Blume. 
It is this uniformity in its general character, no doubt, which has 
caused the systematic place of Begonia to be so uncertain; for as yet 
it connects itself naturally with no other known family. Old botanists 
placed it near Polygonee; more recent ones, among Cucurbitacee ; — 
neither location being appropriate ; and it will certainly depend on the 
discovery of new good genera of this family, whether or not its real 
affinity to any other is to be developed. 
