Oct. 6, 1887] 



NA rURE 



539 



who studied these collections, added information ; 

 they also suggested queries, many of which, how- 

 ever, were vague and perplexing. The results thus 

 accumulated formed, in 1789, four volumes, exclusive of 

 a supplementary one. These were divided into sections, 

 *'Nai-hen" and " Gwai-hen," referring to those plants 

 used in medicine for internal and external purposes re- 

 spectively. Each of these two sections is again sub- 

 divided into four parts. The work was afterwards 

 published, about 1835, by the order of the then Prince 

 of Satsuma, of the province of Kiusiu, but appears to me 

 :o have been printed in Y^do (Tokio). The excellence 

 )f the illustrations throughout the work makes it easy for 

 botanists to recognize the characters of plants which are 

 lepresented in the work. To take an instance, it is 

 interesting to learn in this work, that Epimediuvi macran- 

 'hu/n, with its violaceous variety, is found in the Riukiu 

 Islands.^ There is additional interest in the illustration 

 of a species of Balanophora, a genus of the order now 

 known to occur from tropical parts of Asia to nearly 

 54° N. lat. of Japan, through Hong Kong and the Riukiu 

 islands ; which I have lately treated elsewhere (Journ. 

 Linnean Society, Bot., vol. xxiv.). 



Now, to examine the Western literature of the flora 

 before us. Though no small number of plants, recorded 

 as indigenous to the Riukiu Islands, are mentioned 

 in botanical literature,- the first compact exposition of 

 the flora, drawn up under the careful examination of a 

 number of specialists, is a memoir which appeared in 

 the fourth and fifth volumes of Englers Botanische 

 Jahrbiicher, published in 1883 and 1885 with the title 

 '• Beitrage zur Flora des siidlichen Japan und der 

 LiukiuTnseln." This memoir, based principally upon 

 the specimens collected by Doderlein and Tashiro in 

 Ohshima, enumerates ninety-five species of plants from 

 that part of the Riukiu Islands. Of these, three species 

 are shown to be new, one of which, Asplenium Doder- 

 /einii, belongs to Vascular Cryptogams, while the remain- 

 ing two, Sceleria Doderleinii and Cinnamomum D'dder- 

 leinii, represent respectively Mono- and Di-cotyledons. 

 Among these ninety-five species, sixty were previously 

 known to occur in Japan, and also in other parts of 

 Eastern Asia, the remaining thirty-five being unknown in 

 Japan. Of these thirty-five species, sixteen are known to 

 occur in China and the Indian Archipelago, seven in 

 Australia, and the rest in Malacca, Ceylon, Himalaya, 

 and other places. It must, however, be remembered that 

 a Leguminous plant, Lotus australis, collected in the 

 Riukiu Islands, though previously known in Australia, has 

 not yet been discovered in any of the transitional regions. 



Early in 1886, Maximowicz published, in the Bulletin 

 of the Academy of Science of St. Petersburg, the sixth 

 part of his work on the plants of Eastern Asia, which 

 added no less than fifty species of Riukiu plants to those 

 contained in Engler's Jahrbiicher. The main portion of 

 these plants were collected by Tashiro, who, working 

 among other groups of the islands, made a preliminary 

 contribution to our knowledge of the flora of Miyako-sima, 

 a small isle lying in 45° N. lat. and 125^ E. long. The 

 new species here described from Riukiu Islands are eight, 

 viz. Euonyvius Tashiroi, Galactia Tdshiroi, Erythr(xa 

 Japonica, Arfa'ctochilus Tashiroi, Premna staminea, P. 

 glabra, Rhododendron Tashiroi, and Webera retusa. The 

 first five species are endemic to the Riukiu Islands, while 

 the last three are found as well in the adjacent isles of 

 Kiusiu, and in the Ogasawara Islands."* I may here remark 

 that a new genus of Rubiaceous plant, established by 

 Ahlburg (in Bot. Zeitg. 1878, p. 113), under the name 



' Up to the time of the publication of my paper on the " Berberidaceaeof 

 Japan " (Journ. Linn. See. i837, v )1. xxii ). I found that no one had c jllected 

 specimens of this plant in the Riukiu Islands. 



* Hooker and Arnott's ''Botany of Beechy's Voyage" contains some 

 account of the plants collected in the Riukiu Islands. 



3 Generally known as the Bonin Islands, wliich is probably a corruption of 

 ilf««/«-jima, i.e. destitute of man, an other Japanese name for the islands. 



Aucubaphylluin Liukiicense, which has remained doubtfiiI'> 

 will probably be identified with Psycotria elliptica. 



Lastly, Forbes and Hemsley's " Index Florae Sinensis," 

 which is intended to include all plants known in China 

 proper, Corea, and their adjacent islands, but excluding 

 Japan, does nevertheless embrace the flora of Riukiu 

 Islands within its scope. As only the first two parts of 

 this important work have made their appearance, it will 

 perhaps be better not to draw any conclusion at present ; 

 still it may be of some interest to point out that we are 

 now practically furnished with our first knowledge of the 

 specimens of plants collected in the Riukiu Islands by 

 Charles Wright and a few other botanists, and deposited 

 in those two great botanical store-houses, the Kew 

 Herbarium and the British (Natural History) Museum. 



We cannot but feel how imperfect is our knowledge 

 of the flora of the Riukiu Islands. W^e should attach 

 much importance to its further investigation. For 

 careful examination of the southern group of the Riukiu 

 Islands will probably bring out, to some extent, the rela- 

 tions between the floras of China and Japan, and between 

 those of the latter and the Philippine Islands, the Indian 

 Archipelago, and perhaps even that of Australia. It will 

 be understood that this southern group of islands, kno.vn 

 as Yayeyama, which is situated about 24" N. lat. and be- 

 tween 123° and 124° E. long., remains as yet absolutely 

 uninvestigated. The Yayeyama group consists of nine 

 isles — namely, Ishigaki, Iriomot^, Taketomi, Kobama, 

 Hatoma, Kuro-shima, Arakusuku, Hateruma, and Yona- 

 kuni ; besides which there are three smaller ones — Uchi- 

 Hanar^, Soto-Hanard, and Kayama-shima, the two latter 

 being the only uninhabited isles in the group. Hateruma, 

 which is situated in 24° 4' N. lat, is known as the southern 

 extremity of the Japanese Empire. We rejoice to be able 

 to state that our friend, Y. Tashiro, who had previously 

 made some important collections of the plants of the Riukiu 

 Islands, has, by the commission of the Japanese Govern- 

 ment, lately extended his researches to this Yayeyama 

 group, where he resided during 1885 and 1886. We hope 

 that the collection resulting from his incessant labours 

 will be intrusted to competent hands, and that an adequate 

 account of it will soon be published. 



Cambridge. TOKUTARO ITO. 



NOTES.. 



An interesting collection of specimens has just been received 

 at the Natural History Branch of the British Museum, Cromwell 

 Road, from Emin Pasha. They were despatched from Wadelai 

 in November last, vi& Zanzibar, through the kind assistance of 

 Mr. Mackay, of the Church Missionary Society in Uganda, and 

 have arrived at their destination in good condition. The collec- 

 tion consists of skins of birds and mammals, butterflies, and 

 some anthropological objects, and, when worked out by the 

 officers of the Museum, will be described in detail at one of the 

 meetings of the Zoological Society during the ensuing session. 

 In a letter received a few days ago by Prof. Flower, dated 

 Wadelai, April 15, Emin Pasha speaks of a further consignment 

 of specimens (chiefly ethnological), as being ready for despatch 

 to the Museum on the first opportunity. 



Lv 1884 Mr. John Ball, F.R.S., published a paper in the 

 Journal of the Linnean Society (vol. xviii. pp. 203-240) giving 

 ihe first comprehensive account of the flora of North Patagonia. 

 This was based on a collection obtained from him during his 

 travels in South America from M. Georges Claraz, a Swiss 

 gentleman who had passed several years chiefly at Bahia Blanca. 

 Mr. J. L. Williams- Andrews has now sent to Kew a beautifully- 

 preserved collection made by him in the same region during the 

 years 1881-85. The excellence of the specimens is the more 

 remarkable as the majority of them have travelled more than 

 six hundred miles on horseback. Mr. Williams- Andrews writes 



