gutem =; 
= . 
ON THE PH@NIX OF THE HONGKONG FLORA. 15 
and all purely accidental. At present, it will suffice to notice that the 
quotation, as front me, under the head of ** Lemnacea,”’ was never mine 
either in spelling or meaning; and that the opening statement, surely 
a mere inadvertency, is aai calculated to mislead. ere it is :— 
*In a paper published in the * Quarterly Journal of Microscopical 
Science,’ Dr. Lankester called attention to the constant occurrence of 
raphides in certain Orders of plants, and since then Professor Gulliver 
has published a series of exhaustive observations on the subject.” 
Now, so far from following, I preceded Dr. Lankester in this in- 
quiry, as plainly appears from his own paper, whieh was obviously 
written merely to introduce the subject to the readers of the Journal, 
then edited by him; but, though excellent for this purpose, without 
even a single original observation of his own concerning “ the constant 
occurrence of raphides in certain Orders," while in that very paper he 
quotes one or other of my memoirs, previously published in the * Annals 
of Natural History, in proof of the ordinal value of the character 
sometimes afforded by raphides in systematic botany. 
Canterbury, December 12th, 1868. 
ON THE PH(NIX OF THE HONGKONG FLORA. 
By H. F. Hawcz, Pu.D., ETC. 
"The existence of a wild Date-Palm in Hongkong was, I believe, 
first mentioned by Mr. Bentham, in his enumeration of the plants 
collected in the island by the late Lieut.-Colonel Champion ;* without, 
however, any attempt to determine the species. Two years later, Dr. 
Seemann t referred my specimens of the plant to P. acaulis, Roxb., 
remarking that the presence or absence of a stem affords no reliable 
character in the genus. Mr. Bentham subsequently, f whilst retaining 
this name with a mark of doubt, observed that the genuine plant has a 
short bulb-shaped stem, and that the Hongkong specimens at his dis- 
posal were undistinguishable from P. paludosa, Roxb. At a later 
date, I described $ the plant more in detail, pointing out that it 
* Hookers Kew Gard. Mise. vii. 33. (1855.) 
o rald, 416. 
f ‘Flora of Hongkong, 340 (1861). 
§ Ann. Sc. Nat. ome sér. v. 247. (1866. ) 
