INTRODUCTION 



help of Dr. E. D. Merrill, then Director and Botanist at the Bureau of Science, Manila, 

 who over a period of fifteen years identified for us hundreds of specimens each year, 

 enabling us to build a reference collection of authentically named specimens, which 

 reached about 45,000 sheets by 1950. 



With this growing herbarium collection for reference, with regular classes in 

 systematic botany as a stimulus, and with the preparation of a manual as the objec- 

 tive, there has been progress through several preliminary stages. A list of families 

 was followed by a synopsis of the families with keys to the genera. Later, keys to 

 species were added, and notes included, for each species where possible, covering 

 English common name, Chinese name, translation of meaning of Chinese name, ref- 

 erence to the most available species description, habit of growth, size, flowers and 

 fruits, a diagnostic character, geographical distribution, habitat, and reference to uses 

 for economic plants. Roman numerals are used to indicate the months of flowering 

 and fruiting in the Lower Yangtze Valley. Dr. C. S. Fan and other able Chinese 

 colleagues have prepared, in China, about 500 drawings of plants representing the 

 diagnostic characters of different genera which effectively illustrate the manual. 



The limitations of movement which have accompanied the conditions of warfare, 

 occupation and revolution in East-Central China since 1937 have greatly restricted the 

 field study needed for the completion of this Manual. Although this work must be 

 regarded as in the nature of a preliminary flora, it is believed to be the first presenta- 

 tion for the area of a flora with keys and descriptions to families, genera and species. 

 The present work covers 196 families, 871 genera and 1,959 species of vascular plants. 



