ADDITIONAL NOTES ON THE KWANGTUNG FLORA 



By E. D. Merrill 

 Botanist, Bureau of Science, Manila 



This third paper on the flora of Kwangtung Province, China, 

 is essentially like its predecessors.^ In it have been included 

 the descriptions of fifteen presumably new species, and records 

 of thirty-four previously described forms either new to China 

 or new to Kwangtung Province. The m.aterial on which these 

 data are based has been collected by Mr. CO. Levine and Mr. 

 G. W. Groff, of the Canton Christian College, ably assisted by 

 their Chinese collector To Kang P'eng. 



In this paper have also been included some necessary changes 

 in nomenclature for Chinese species occasioned by a recent pre- 

 liminary study of Loureiro's Flora Cochinchinensis. This work 

 was published in 1790. It contains the descriptions of one 

 thousand two hundred ninety-four species and a few varieties, 

 of which about six hundred thirty were described as new, the 

 others ascribed to binomials established by Linnaeus. A pre- 

 liminary examination of Loureiro's work shows that he fre- 

 quently described some species twice, or sometimes even three 

 or four times, under the same or under different generic names. 

 In nearly one hundred cases reductions have been made, so that 

 the total number of distinct species described by Loureiro is 

 probably less than one thousand two hundred. In his interpre- 

 tation of Linnean species he made numerous and frequently 

 grave errors, and in about three hundred seventy cases, or about 

 56 per cent, he was wrong in the interpretation of such species. 

 Loureiro described as new a total of one hundred eighty-five gen- 

 era of which forty-two are generally adopted as valid ones or, 

 if strict priority be followed, eliminating those names excluded 

 by the lists of nomina conservanda adopted by the Vienna and 

 the Brussels Botanical Congresses, fifty should be adopted. 

 Fourteen of Loureiro's new genera have never been satisfacto- 

 rily reduced and remain as doubtful ones. 



* Merrill, E. D., Notes on the flora of Kwangtung Province, China, Philip. 

 Journ. Sci. 12 (1917) Bot. 99-111; Notes on the flora of Loh Fau Mountain, 

 Kwangtung Province, China, op. cit. 13 (1918) Bot. 123-161. 



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