74 BOTANICON SINICUM. 
he was again attacked by illness and allowed to retire from his 
public duties. He died a short time afterwards. The Emperor 
gave him a posthumous title. 
It appears from this dry curriculum vite that Wu K% siin dis- 
played great activity in his public life. The opportunity he had 
of making himself acquainted with many provinces of the Empire 
qualified him to investigate the Chinese Flora. It is however not 
easily understood how he found leisure to prosecute his favourite 
studies and to write an extensive work on Botany, illustrated with 
a large number of drawings. 
The Chi wu ming shi t‘u k‘ao is generally in 8 tomes (t‘a0). 
One-half of them, 4 t‘ao or 22 (rather voluminous) books, comprise 
the descriptive portion of the work, and are styled Re i Chang 
pien by the author. They contain accounts of plants compiled as 
usual from previous authors, but Wu K4 siin introduces also a 
good deal of new and interesting matter not found in the Kuang 
K‘in fang p‘u or the Tu shu tsi ch‘eng. 
The second part, in 88 books, forming also 4 t‘ao, is devoted 
to pictorial illustrations of plants accompanied with short, some- 
times also detailed descriptions. These drawings, nearly 1800 in 
number, are tolerably well executed, especially those delineated 
by the author himself, apparently from nature. One part of the 
engravings can be traced to the Kiu huang pen ts‘ao (see above 
No.35). Although the wood-cuts in the Chi wu ming shi t‘u k‘ao 
cannot be compared, as far as scientific accuracy in delineation is 
concerned, with those of some Japanese botanical works (of which 
I shall speak further on), it is undoubtedly the best Chinese pic- 
torial work of this class, and entitled to special attention on the 
part of students of Chinese Botany. 
The Chi wu ming etc. was revised and published, it seems soon 
after the death of the author, by Be fe ae Lu Ying hu, a native 
of the province of Yiin nan, who wrote also the preface, which is 
dated T‘ai yiian fu (Shansi) 1848. He states that Wu K% sin, 
having held public offices in different parts of the Empire, had 
many opportunities of making observations with respect to plants, _ 
and of comparing his own experiences with the statements of 
previous authors. He had at an earlier period composed the first — 
