PREFACE. v 9* 



made several interesting additions to the known plants of that colony, 

 removed with his regiment to Hongkong. He remained there three 

 years, and during his leisure moments devoted himself with ardour to 

 the investigation of the Flora of the island. He very -early transmitted 

 to his friend the late Dr. Gardner, then Superintendent" of the Botanic 

 Gardens at Peradenia, in Ceylon, several entirely new species, descrip- 

 tions of which that botanist remitted for publication to Sir "W. Hooker, 

 who inserted them in the first volume of his ' Kew Journal of Botany.' 

 On his return to England in 1850, Col. Champion brought with him a 

 fine collection of between five and six hundred species of phsenogamous 

 plants and ferns, the result of his labours. These included the great 

 majority of the dicotyledonous plants, orchids and ferns, which have 

 hitherto been found in the vicinity of Victoria, in the rich watery or 

 wooded valleys of the north-west from Yv^est Point to the Happy Valley, 

 and thence up to the principal central peaks, Mounts Victoria, Gough, 

 and Parker. He had also extended his herborizations 'to Chuck-@hew 

 (Stanley) on the south coast, and to Saywan on the east, and perhaps 

 to a few other distant points, but he had seldom been able to visit the 

 back of the island, and we miss in his collection a few interesting species 

 previously gathered by Mr. Hinds about Tytam-took, as well as the 

 Flora of the maritime sands generally. He paid also but little attention 

 to glumaceous plants, or indeed to almost any monocotyledons except 

 orchids. Early in 1851 he placed in my hands a complete set of his 

 specimens, accompanied frequently by analytical sketches and descrip- 

 tions made on the spot, and almost always by most valuable memoranda 

 relating to precise station, to stature, colour, etc., which it were to be 

 wished were less neglected by the majority of collectors ; and on leaving 

 England for the fatal Crimean campaign, he deposited the remaining 

 specimens which he had reserved for himself, in the herbarium of Sir 

 W. J. Hooker. In the meantime, with Col. Champion's assistance, I 

 had proceeded to the enumeration of the species gathered by him, in- 

 cluding descriptions of numerous entirely new ones, which appeared 

 successively in detached portions in Hooker's ' Kew Journal of Botany,' 

 vols. iii. to vii. and ix. 



Dk. H, F. Hance, now at Canton, has been almost continuously re- 

 sident in Southern China since 1844, and the greater portion of the time 

 in Hongkong, where he zealously applied himself to the study of the 

 Flora of the island. He remitted a few descriptions of species which 

 he believed to be new, to Sir "W. J. Hooker, who published them in the 

 first volume of his ' Kew Journal of Botany,' and placed the diagnoses 



