NOTICiOS OV BOOES. 59 



the original tickets of Schimper, with his manuscript numbers and 

 notes. The specimens were gathered in the Abyssinian provinces of 

 Tigre and Amhara, mostly in the former province, and in the years 

 1862 and 1863. Schimper himself sent also in the year 1869 a full 

 set to the Royal Herbarium at Berlin ; and it is from this set that Vatke 

 elaborated the above-cited paper, which comprises notes of localities, 

 altitudes, vernacular names, economic uses, and dates, such as are found 

 on the original tickets in the British Museum, and in most cases, if 

 not in all, identical with them. 



For the purpose of his determinations Vatke was unfortunately 

 unable to consult Achillc Richard's " Tentamen Flora) Abyssinica?," 

 the first volume of which, published at Paris in 1847, contains the 

 order of the Composita), inasmuch as he failed to find this French book 

 in the Royal Library at Berlin, and he was therefore compelled to take 

 the descriptions of Richard's species at second hand from the second 

 volume of Walper's " Annales Botanices Systematica^ " (1852). Typo- 

 specimens, however, of some of Richard's species appear to exist in the 

 Berlin herbarium, for Vatke indicates by the usual sign that he has 

 in certain cases seen authentic specimens. 



For the genera Vatke has pretty strictly followed Bentham, and 

 has accordingly transferred in detail several species into their right 

 genus as mentioned or generally suggested in the first part of the 

 second volume of Bentham and Hooker's "Genera Plantarum " 

 (1873). 



Besides this set of Schimper's plants, Vatke has also given in their 

 places the numbers of the set of the j^ear 1853, which were distri- 

 buted with names from Paris. From the total number of this latter 

 set noted by Vatke, it would appear that the 1853 set at Berlin is 

 scarcely so rich as that of the same set at Kew. 



Professor Oliver and I have liad occasion to examine the Abyssi- 

 nian plants of Schimper, and to determine their names, in order to in- 

 clude them in our work on the Compositaa which we have some time ago 

 jointly written for the third volume of the " Flora of Tropical Africa," 

 but which is not yet published. 



As might have been expected, we all agree in the determination of 

 the majority of the species, but there are some cases where we difli'er 

 from Vatke ; I propose therefore to give the principal instances 

 of divergence. The majority of such cases are not at all important, 

 being either a reference of an Abyssinian species to one not previously 

 considered to be such, or an objection to such reference, or, in other 

 cases, a difference of opinion regarding the range of specific variation 

 among purely Abyssinian forms. "With regard to this latter class of 

 cases, I do not desire to lay much stress, being fully aware what widely 

 different views exist among very excellent botanists with regard to 

 specific values. It has been often said that, notwithstanding differ- 

 ences of previous education and mental constitution, workers at a 

 large herbarium like Kew usually come to a nearly or at least fairly 

 equivalent result on this point of specific values ; and on comparing 

 our work at Kew and at the British Museum on Schimper's Abyssi- 

 nian Compositse with that of Vatke at Berlin, I think that the average 

 values which Vatke and we attach to specific characters are not very 



