d 6 
Beyond that, progress has to be made by the use of Chinese paths. 
There are no roads, even between the largest cities. Chinese guides 
can conduct the traveller from town to town, but the paths are not 
commodious for the carriage of heavy baggage, being at intervals 
only a few inches wide and consisting of narrow stone steps on the 
mountain sides. It thus cpi ari that though many able and enter- 
prising botanists have resided in the province, none of them have 
been able to make any Jung secu collections beyond the neighbour- 
hood of the water ways. 
History of Botanical Exploration .—Meagre as is our knowledge of 
the flora of this province, it is probably 1 more complete than is the 
case with any other part of China. To this result have contributed 
the unusual length of the sea coast, the navigability of several of 
the rivers, the long residence of Europea ans at four of the principal 
centres and the fact that a well-equipped botanical station has been 
maintained by the British Government for many years at Hongkong, 
nearly in the centre of the coast line. 
concise account of the history of exploration up to nearly the 
end of last century may be found in Bretschneider's classical History 
of Botanical Discoveries in China. The collectors during that 
period, whose work has most oed, Bec, contributed to our know- 
us à aft accurate idea of the vegetation of a few hundred square 
miles of the district. 
Much still remains to be done. A map has been prepared and will 
be found at the beginning of the book indicating the ground already 
more or less botanically explored; all the rest is practically un- . 
touched. Thus the whole of the area from south-west to west of 
Macao, representing roughly the westernmost third of the province, 
remains quite unexplored botanically save for a few small areas on 
the coast. It is probable that the vegetation of this portion con- 
tains a considerable number of species in common with the more 
pores vices tropical — possessions »- the southward which are 
r records for the province. 
The flora again of "the region from oes to east of Canton which 
represents another third of Kwangtung is totally own, except 
from a few collections made on mountains on its southern borders and 
enterprise at their disposal for its exploration. 
* See Dunn's The Hongkong Herbarium in Kew Bull., 1910, 188. 
f See the departmental Annual Reports for the peri riod, 
