THE FLORA OF AMOORLAXP. 129 



as his materials permitted, and comparing them with the vegetation of 

 Dahuria (the trans-Baikal Flora), Eastern Siberia, North China (Pekin), 

 Japan, and North America. As was to be expected, a large number 

 of the species are Siberian, and European and North Asiatic natu- 

 ral orders are the prevailing ones ; yet, if we compare the Elora gene- 

 rally with that of the Altai, for instance, there is a considerable change in 

 its character; the Cruciferae, Astragali, Umbclliferae, Pedicularidae, and 

 other groups constituting so marked a feature in the herbaceous Flora of 

 the latter region, are but sparingly represented in Amuiiand, where 

 Euphorbiaceae, Cyperaceae, Filices, Ribes, Evonymus, &c, become 

 more prominent, showing a tendency, as remarked by our author, to- 

 wards the North American proportions of groups. We enter indeed 

 here, especially in the southern Amur and Ussuri valley, into the cu- 

 rious band of vegetation which connects the United States with the Hi- 

 malaya through Japan, South Mantchuria and North China, and much 

 more so than M. Maximowicz appears to have been aware of. Dr. A 

 Gray's interesting review of the Japanese Flora had not yet reached St. 

 Petersburgh, and our knowledge of the vegetation of temperate eastern 

 Asia was, and is still, lamentabry scanty. Yet every addition we receive 

 to it, and the work now under review as much as any one, shows more 

 clearly the remarkable phytogeographical connexion first pointed out by 

 Dr. Gray. 



M. Maximowicz' s enumeration, after deducting a very few cultivated 

 plants, comprises 904 species, of which 527 are common to the trans- 

 Baikal or Dahurian Flora, 293 to north-east Siberia. For the concord- 

 ance with the Japanese Flora he can give no precise figures; but, although 

 the number is probably less than either of the above, it is considerable, 

 and must include, as he correctly observes, several of the species here 

 first described as new. A list is given of 143 endemic species, hitherto 

 only known in Amuiiand, and 56 more only extending to Pekin ; but 

 amongst them it has already been ascertained that Actinidia Icolomitka 

 is the A. callosa, LindL, extending from the Himalaya to Japan ; Cau- 

 lopliyllum robttstiim is certainly not different from several Japanese and 

 N. American specimens of C. thalictroides. Adenocmdon adlicerens is 

 the Himalayan A. himalaicus, Edgw. ; Youngia chrysantha is the Chi- 

 nese and Japanese Ixeris ramosissima, A. Gr. ; Phyllanthas ussuriensis is 

 the widely-spread south and east Asiatic P. anceps ; Smilacina Mrta is 

 S.jap>onica, A. Gr. ; Maximowiczia chinensis is the Japanese Spihosro- 

 stemmajaponica, A. Gr. ; and the majority of the new species will proba- 

 bly be hereafter found to be identical with, or closely allied to N. Chinese 

 and Japanese, or even Himalayan or North American forms. And we 

 may here remark that, amongst other links afforded by the southern 

 Amur Flora, connecting the chain of North American and Asiatic ve- 

 getation, we have Phryma leptostachya, which had so long been con- 

 sidered as an isolated instance of a plant common to the eastern United 

 States and to the Himalaya, without its occurring in any intermediate sta- 

 tions. It is very abundant in North China, and on the lower and southern 



VOL. I. N. H. E. S 



