64 
Kew Bulletin—For some years this publication has been un- 
fortunately in a state of dormant vitality. The continued 
encroachment of administrative and official wor s made it 
has 
routine annua al appendices, a circumstance which has led the 
Bulletin to be humorously bu t not inaccurately described as 
succumbing to “ appendicitis. 
It is now proposed to issue the available matter on hand in one 
or more numbers for each year. This will at any rate allow the 
annual volumes to be bound, and will at any rate complete the 
record of some branches of the activity of the establishment. 
Index Flore Sinensis.—The concluding part of the third volume 
of this work (forming vol. xxxvi. of the Journal [Botan ny | of the 
Linnean Society) has been asian! with the following Historical 
Note by Sir W. Thiselton-Dyer : 
“lhe completion of an undertaking which has been on hand for 
sage twenty eae has far exceeded the limits originally assigned 
it, and must, I fear, have long ago exhausted the patience of 
the Linnean Scciaty, invites, if it does not almost demand, a few 
words of explanation as to its history. 
“As long ago as 1878 I was invited to gee before the Royal 
Geographical Society a lecture which was in substance an attempt 
to review the knowledge existing at an fhe. of the Earth’s flora. 
When I came to the vast territory occupied in the Old World by 
the Chinese Empire, I could only quote the statement mee four 
years earlier by the well-known botanist, the late Dr. Hance 
*“* While M. Maximowicz’ s excellent and very complete ‘ Index 
Flore Pekinensis’ provides a good catalogue of the flora of the 
Chinese metropolis and its ants, and Mr. Bentham’s classical 
‘Flore Hongkongensis’ has acquainted us with the principal con- 
suiktente of that of the extreme South-east of the oe nothing 
whatever of a scientific character has yet to my knowledge been 
written on the vegetation of the districts intermediate to those 
two points, which are separated by 17° of mene or of the 
various ports of trade along the coast or on the Yangtse 
“Tt seemed to me that a beginning might at any rate be m ade 
to remedy this conspicuous defect in our knowledge of the vege- 
tation of the Old World, and that a list of Chinese plants which 
had actually been c¢ ollected would throw some light on the 
character of ad Chien Flora and would afford a starting point 
for fresh resea 
aS ssiniae in December, 1883, made the following appeal 
to the Government Grant Committee of the Royal Society :-— 
“*To ask for appointment of a Committee to report on our 
present knowledge of the he! China. It is believed that 
the national herbaria contai considerable accumulation of 
material, which it is dosivabte “doaill be catalogued after the 
