129 



dl^riginal %ttit\c0. 



ON SOME MOUNTAIN PLANTS FROM NORTHERN CHINA. 

 By Henry F. Haxce, Ph.D., &c. 



At the commencement of last summer, Dr. Emil Bretsclmeider 

 physician to the Imperial Russian Legation at Peking, paid a visit to a 

 celebrated mountain named Po-hua-shan, or *' Mountain of a Hundred 

 Flowers," situated three days' journey west of the capital, where he 

 made a stay of some days. The season was then unfortunately too 

 little advanced, so that a great number of the trees which clothe the 

 summit were but just bursting into leaf, whilst the ground was still 

 in some places covered with snow ; he succeeded, however, in gather- 

 ing and preserving about sixty plants, which were forwarded to me 

 for examination and determination. Although, as might have been 

 anticipated, there is no very great amount of novelty in so small a col- 

 lection, still it contains some plants of much interest, and I have 

 thought it worth publication ; the more so as our only published 

 notices of the Flora of these regions are the veteran Bunge's *' Enume- 

 ratio plantarum Chinae borealis," printed forty-three years since, and 

 Maximowicz's "Index Florae Pekinensis," which, though singularly 

 complete, and very accurate as regards determination, is still but a 

 catalogue, without any distinction of mountain plants from those 

 found on the plains. It was my wish to preface this enumeration by 

 the original notes on the locality, as wiitten to me by my friend in 

 French ; but I have not felt myself at liberty to disregard a distinct 

 wish to the contrary expressed by Dr. Bretschneider. The following 

 brief summary is, however, drawn up from these, and I am exclu- 

 sively indebted to him for all the information it contains. 



The Peking plain is bounded on the N. and W. by mountains : to 

 the W., where the river Hun-ho debouches, these commence at a dis- 

 tance of about fifteen English miles from the capital ; and fifty miles 

 further W. stands the Po-hua-shan, in the midst of the hill country 

 which is believed to extend westward as far as the Yellow River. The 

 mountain itself is separated from the neighbouring elevations by a 

 deep and rugged valley, formed by a small tributary of the Hun-ho, 

 which bounds it on the N., the W., and the S. ; whilst to the E,, where 

 also the descent is exceedingly steep, another tributary of the Hun-ho 

 rises. Po-hua-shan is thus almost entirely isolated from the surround- 

 ing mountains, which it exceeds in height. Its actual elevation has 

 not as yet been determined, though Dr. Bretschneider took barome- 

 trical observations ; but he estimates it as between 7000 and 8000 feet 



N.s. VOL. 4. [May, 1875.] i 



