250 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



Many of Cunuiugbam's plants were described by Petiver and 

 Plukenet ; Uke so many of the collections in the Sloane Her- 

 barium, they have been to a great extent lost sight of, but contain 

 much of interest. Among the plants first described by Petiver 

 (from Cunningham's specimens), is Camellia japonica. It may be 

 noted, by the way, that the National Herbarium at South Ken- 

 sington contains other early Chinese collections besides those 

 included in the Sloane Herbarium, notably a large series from Sir 

 George Staunton, with others from Bladh, Nelson and Eobertson. 



With regard to the neglect of d'Incarville's collections by the 

 French Museum, referred to by Dr. Bretschneider, we learn from 

 Mr. F. B. Forbes that the packet referred to has been found intact 

 by M. Franchet, in good order, with the original tickets and with 

 Adrien de Jussieu's manuscript notes on many of the specimens. 

 M. Franchet has determined the collection, and has either already 

 published a list or is about to do so. 



Dr. Bretschneider alludes to the plants of Loureiro, which 

 formed part of the Banksian Herbarium, and which are incor- 

 porated with the national collection. His inference, however, 

 "from some references found in Benth. and Hook., Gen. Plant," 

 that *' these plants have been badly preserved, and their exami- 

 nation of little use for deciding dubious questions," is hardly 

 justified by the specimens themselves taken as a whole, although in 

 some cases they are very fragmentary. We have on a former 

 occasion '•' drawn attention to the important collections made 

 during the last century, which are included in the Banksian 

 Herbarium, and which have been too much overlooked by recent 

 authors. Much more will probably be done in the way of identi- 

 fying Loureiro' s plants ; Dr. Bretschneider has brought together 

 with great care, from various sources, all the identifications which 

 he could find. There is a good index of genera ; we should have 

 been glad had the species also been enumerated therein. 



Dr. Bretschneider's other work, the ' Botanicon Sinicum,' may 

 in a sense be regarded as an enlarged and corrected edition of his 

 essay ' On the Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Works,' 

 published more than ten years since. It is divided into three parts. 

 The first, a " Contribution towards a History of the Development 

 of Botanical Knowledge among Eastern Asiatic Nations ' ; the 

 second, ' On the Scientific Determination of the Plants mentioned 

 in Chinese books ' ; the third, ' An Alphabetical List of Chinese 

 Works, with an index of Chmese Authors.' A useful " list of about 

 seventy of the more conspicuous hills and mountains of China 

 Proper " is given as an appendix. It would be difficult, in the 

 space at our disposal, to give anything like an adequate notice of 

 this volume, which indeed, from its nature, does not readily lend 

 itself to a general notice ; but for the student of the history of 

 Chinese botany it is at least as indispensable as the work already 

 noticed. Dr. Bretschneider modestly says that he is "neither a 

 sinologue nor a botanist, [his] knowledge of Chinese as well as of 



* JouiLi. Bot., 1880, pp. 90, 91. 



