THE FLORA OF WESTERN CHINA 3 



Our knowledge of the marvellous richness of the Chinese 

 flora has been very slowly built up. Travellers, missionaries 

 of all denominations, merchants, consuls, Maritime Customs 

 officials, and all sorts and conditions of men have added 

 their quota ; but, as in geography and other departments 

 of knowledge relating to the Far East, the Roman Catholic 

 priests have played the prominent part. The exclusive policy 

 of the Chinese has necessarily increased the difficulties of 

 Europeans who sought to acquire an intimate knowledge of 

 the country, and all honour is due to the workers who have 

 exploited this field in the past. 



On behalf of the Royal Horticultural Society of London 

 and others, Robert Fortune, in the 'Forties and 'Fifties of last 

 century, completed the work of his predecessors and exhausted 

 the gardens of China, to our gardens' benefit ; but the 

 difficulties of travel were such that he had practically no 

 opportunity of investigating the natural wild flora. With 

 the exception of perhaps half a dozen plants, everything he 

 sent home came from Chinese gardens. But one of his 

 wildlings — Rhododendron Fortunei, to wit — has proved of 

 inestimable value to Rhododendron breeders. 



Charles Maries, collecting on behalf of Messrs. Veitch, in 

 1879, ascended the Yangtsze as far as Ichang. He found 

 the natives there unfriendly, and after staying a week was 

 compelled to return. During his brief stay, however, he 

 secured Primula ohconica, one of the most valuable decorative 

 plants of to-day. Near Kiukiang he secured Hamamelis 

 mollis, Loropetalum chinense, and a few other plants of less 

 value, and then hied himself away to Japan. For some 

 curious reason or other he concluded that his predecessor. 

 Fortune, had exhausted the floral resources of China, and, 

 most extraordinary of all, his conclusions were accepted ! 

 When at Ichang, could he but have gone some three days' 

 journey north, south, or west, he would have secured a haul 

 of new plants such as the botanical and horticultural world 

 had never dreamed of. By the irony of Fate it was left for 

 two or three others to discover and obtain what had been 

 almost within his grasp. 



The enormous Chinese population, especially in the vicinity 



