obtained from the Xanthoxylacese. 197 



may exist, one of which (marked by broader leaflets, a panicled 

 inflorescence, and few, if any, spines) was sometimes brought for 

 sale to the markets of the southern Taku Fort. I was informed 

 that the inhabitants in the maritime and other districts of 

 Petchili often plucked the immature fruit both for use and com- 

 merce. 



Although the Xanthoxylacese are to be met with more or less 

 abundant throughout the tract of country that embraced the 

 seat of war, I nevertheless failed to discover the X. alatum, which, 

 if it had constituted the ordinary source of the condiment of the 

 population of Northern China, would have been placed under 

 cultivation : such, apparently, is not the fact. This pepper, in- 

 dependently of its consumption as a spice, has been supposed 

 to possess certain medicinal properties, and to act as an antidote 

 against poisons. It is, however, never retailed in the drug-shops 

 as a medicine, but only in those depots where various kinds of 

 food are submitted for purchase. Taking into consideration the 

 preceding data, I can only arrive at the conclusion that the 

 mercantile article denominated Chinese pepper, exported from 

 various provincial sea-ports, is in a great proportion procured 

 from the X. piperitum, DC. 



II. Anise Pepper (Xauthoxylum Mantchuricum, Benn.). 



Scattered among the oak (Quercus Mongolica, Fisch. ; Q. 

 obovata, Bge.), mulberry (Bj-oussonetia papyrifera), and other 

 trees that fringed the outskirts of the Tuns, or native hamlets, 

 in the neighbourhood of Taku-shan (a small village on the 

 eastern side of Talie-whan, in Mantchuria) were a number of 

 arborescent shrubs or young trees, whose corymbose inflores- 

 cence, imparipinnate foliage, and widely-spreading branches 

 rendered them somewhat conspicuous objects in the botanical 

 features of the locality. They afforded the usual characteristics 

 of the Xanthoxylacese, and, from dried specimens of the plants 

 submitted to the consideration of Mr. Bennett, have been deter- 

 mined by him to be a new species, which will be subsequently 

 described in this paper under the name of X. Mantchuricum. 

 This production may be distinguished from the preceding spe- 

 cies by the more erect and tapering trunk (10-20 feet in height), 

 divergent branches, expanded leaves, narrow and smaller pinnae 

 with fewer spines, the peculiar deep-pink hue of the pedicels 

 and entire peduncle, but more especially by the remark- 

 able anise-like flavour of the capsules. The plant flowers in 

 May and June ; and the fruits, which crown the summit in ter- 

 minal corymbs, are at first green, but gradually change into a 

 deep-red colour towards the end of September, when they attain 

 maturity. The carpels, as they ripen, dehisce and display a 



