BENTHAiWS FLORA OF HONGKONG. 117 



nearly determined the existence of A. Fraseri on the Green 

 Mountains in Vermont, we could not deny that A. alha grows 

 with the latter on the high mountains of North Carolina. 

 We make our little criticism freely, — as we know the ex- 

 cellent author would wish, — for we think it likely that this 

 part of the Report will pass to a second edition, — when we 

 hope it will be largely augmented. 



BENTHAM'S FLORA OF HONGKONG. 



The present work^ is the third of the series of British 

 Colonial Floras, upon a new and simple plan, compact in 

 form, written in English throughout, authorized and supported 

 by the British Government. The Colonial department pays 

 a very moderate recompense to the authors, and turns the 

 work over to a publisher upon such terms as to render the 

 volume generally accessible to working botanists and colonists. 

 This is a much wiser as well as vastly more economical plan 

 of government patronage to scientific publication than that 

 adopted in this country, one which secures that the publications 

 are just what is wanted and that they reach the hands which 

 are to use them, and not others, — one which, when our pres- 

 ent task is done and we again cultivate the arts of peace, we 

 might profitably adopt. The present work is by a master- 

 hand ; for Mr. Bentham is one of the most experienced, in- 

 dustrious, and judicious of systematic botanists. The island 

 of Hongkong has an area of scarcely thirty square miles, its 

 general aspect is bleak and barren ; yet it has already yielded 

 about a thousand phaenogamous species. " At a first glance," 

 as the author observes, " one is struck with the very large 

 total amount of species crowded upon so small an island, 

 which all navigators depict as apparently so bleak and bare ; 



1 Flora Hongkongensis ; a Description of the Flowering Plants and 

 Ferns of the Island of Hongkong, by George Bentham. With a Map 

 of the Island. Published under the Authority of Her Majesty's Secre- 

 tary of State for the Colonies. London, 1861. (American Jonmal of 

 Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxzii. 124.) 



