n INTRODUCTION. 



half as iieAV. In so doing, I shall be accused of having described too many 

 new species, and shall be censured for having paid but little attention to known 

 species. But such is not at all the case. I have, as far as necessary, consulted 

 all accessible literature bearing on my work, and have made exhaustive 

 comparisons with all the herbarium specimens preserved in our institutes 

 at Taihoku and Tokyo. It should be understood, as I stated in my former 

 paper,* that our herbaria are as yet very inadequate for the working up of 

 my materials which are really extensive. It frequently occurs with us that 

 foreign herbarium specimens for comparison being very scanty, we are 

 compelled to consult original or reproduced descriptions, instead of herbarium 

 specimens themselves. 



In this way have my own investigations been made. I have commenced 

 my work with the utmost care, examining all descriptions of the species with 

 which my plants might be identified. In those cases in which the descrip- 

 tions of plants under examination were exhaustive or at least available for 

 identification, the work could be carried on with some measure of satisfaction. 

 Much more satisfactory has it been when they were accompanied with figures. 

 When, however, the descriptions were very short and imperfect and not 

 accompanied with any figures, the work of identification was utterly dis- 

 appointing if not impossible. In cases where I could not satisfactorily 

 identify my plants with any known species in consequence of the imperfec- 

 tion of the given descriptions or the want of herbarium specimens, the only 

 work that was possible for me was to describe my plants fully and accurate- 

 ly as new species, giving their affinities. This has been most frequently 

 the case with ferns. As stated by Sir WILLIAM HOOKER,** the identification 

 of ferns with given descriptions is a very difficult task, and in some cases 

 utterly impossible, if the descriptions are not accompanied with figures. 



For us to whom comparison with herbarium specimens can be but 

 imperfectly earned out, the most important work to be undertaken is not so 

 much the identification of plants with known species, as the study of their 



* HAYATA, B. Materials for a Flora of Formosa, in Journ. Coll. Sci. Imp. Univ. Tokyo, 

 XXX-1, p. 2. 



** HOOE.EE, Sir WILLIAM JACKSOX. -A second Century of Ferns (1861), p. TIL 



