spicilectL\ flor.^ sinensis. 



SPICILEGIA FLOE.E SINENSIS : DIAGNOSES OF NEW, 

 AND HABITATS OF RAKE OR HITHERTO UNRE- 

 CORDED, CHINESE PLANTS. 



By H. F. Hance, Ph.D., Memb. Acad. Nat. Cur., &c., &c. 



I. 



" Un pays sur lequel nos connaissances sont encore tres-bornees, et qui, 

 sous le point de vue de la geographie botanique et cles questions qui s y rap- 

 portent, raerite toute notre attention." (Miquel, ' Journ. de Bot. Neerland.' i. 85). 



Six years ago the wi-iter '■- exiDressed a hope that he might shortly 

 be able to give a comiDlete list of aU plants not included in the 

 ' Flora Hongkongensis,' which had been found in the province of 

 Kwangtung. Further consideration, and especially the ch-cum- 

 stance that almost every short excursion from Canton or other 

 cities where foreigners reside leads to the discovery of three or 

 four new plants, has since convinced him that such an enumeration 

 would, after all, be too imperfect to be worth compiling ; whilst the 

 opening of several new ports, and the annually increasing facilities 

 for penetratmg into the interior of the Empire, encourage the 

 hope that we maj' soon acquire a far better and more comjDrehen- 

 sive knowledge of one of the most interesting Floras which can 

 occupy the attention of botanists. But, although it would be 

 premature to attempt a systematic list of the plants of any one 

 X)rovince, the recording from time to time of localities where 

 plants, new either to Science or to the country, have been met 

 with, cannot fail to be useful. As M. Netto observes, " Une liste 

 des vegetaux recueillis dans leur i)ays natal, quelque restreinte et 

 quelque incomplete qu'elle soit relativement a la flore de cette 

 region, est toujours un gradus ad f/eof/rajjhicnn hotanicam.''\ Col- 

 lectanea of this nature, based on the researches of a few naturalists 

 or amateurs, have already been given to the world, in the pages of 

 this Journal and elsewhere, by Messrs. Baker, Hemsley, Maxi- 

 mowicz, S. Moore, and others ; and the writer feels that in com- 

 mencing a register of species from time to time received by 

 Ihm, record of whose existence as natives of China might otherwise 

 lie perdu in his own herbarium, or in those public or private ones 

 to which he may have been able to communicate specimens, the 

 diajecta membra thus gathered together will one day furnish a useful 

 material for the geographical botanist. For, as a distinguished 

 authority on these questions well says : — " Les problemes si com- 

 pliques des centres de creation, des migrations des plantes, ne 

 peuvent etre eclaires que par une connaissance aussi approfondie 

 que possible des especes et de leur aire geographique." I 



J<tuni. Lini 



I. Soc.' xiii. UH. + ' Amu. Sc. Nat.' 5e ser, v. 158. 



J Bois^ier, ' Fl. Orient.,' Preface, p. ii. 



