118 BOTANICON SINICUM. 
(C. japonica Planch.). My own experience agrees with Maximo- 
wicz’s view. I am not able to distinguish more than one species 
of Celtis in the neighbourhood of Peking, where the tree is fr- 
quently seen in the plain and in the mountains. Its leaves vary 
in shape on the same tree, being generally ovate, oblong, but 
sometimes also cordate. They are either perfectly smooth or rough 
to the touch (especially on young trees). I have sent specimens 
with variously shaped leaves on the same branch to the Muséum 
d’Histoire naturelle of Paris. Its drupes are always black when 
ripe. A specimen of the Peking tree sent in 1869 to Dr. Hance 
was determined as C. sinensis. The latter is mentioned also in the 
Flora hongkongensis, 
Carriére describes also (Revue Hort. 1867, p. 840) two new 
Poplars from China, again only from a few leaves he had received, 
viz.: Populus tomentosa and P. Simonii, although it is known 
that the leaves of some Poplars are very liable to variation, Maxi- 
mowicz thinks (Fragm. Flore Asie orient. p. 49) that the first is 
the common Populus alba. 
In another instance Carriére does not hesitate to apply the new» 
name of Ailantus flavescens to a young plant received from China 
and cultivated in Paris (Revue Hort. 1865, p. 366), But when ten 
years later the tree first flowered, it turned out to be Cedrela 
sinensis Adr. Juss., belonging to quite a different order (ibid. 1875, 
p- 86). 
The same French botanist (ibid. 1867, p. 451; 1868, p. 10; 
1870, p. 17) has named four (supposed) new species of Ampelopsis 
from North-China, viz.: A. palmilota, A. dissecta, A. tuberosa, 
and A. napiformis. He was evidently not aware that the Flora 
of North-China had been previously studied by Dr. Bunge, who 
described the same plants under other good specific names; and 
thus Carriére produced four useless new names. 
Botanists in Europe, when receiving cultivated specimens from 
foreign countries, generally have no scruples in describing them 
a species, without taking into consideration the variations 
which cultivation may have brought about in these plants. ‘Thus 
Gossypium Nanking. Meyen, Nicotiana chinensis Fisch. (D. C. 
Prodr. XIIT, 1, 559), and Avena chinensis Steudel (Gram. 231), 
