ON A CHINESE MAPLE, 171 
allied genus M. Decaisne* has shown the prevalence of extraordinary 
variability in the volume and shape of the fruit, as well as in other 
characters; butit m bai be borne in mind that this refers to a fruit-tree 
m 
_ progress. No one since the publication of Mr. Darwin’s great work 
on variation is ignorant of the ‘‘ plasticity of the whole organi- 
sation”—to use his own words-—-of our domesticated productions. 
So far as known at present, C. pinnatifida only occurs in North China 
and Manchuria, for the plant found in the Alatau Mountains by 
Semenow, and referred hither by Regel an: v. 5 ee is now 
regarded by rmer as a variety of C. sangui 
h the species here named—most beautifully Tete d by 
itch—have been characterised afresh by Prof. Oliver,|| who has con- 
clusively shown that my suspicion of the identity he a 
species with the North American JZ. s ua, Lin 
8 
A most interesting notice of this tree, celebrated in Chinese Fteesties 
under the name of Fung, has been dec se Mr. T. Sampson. 
Mr. Hanbury, who ing y specimens of F. 
Bungeana had se impressed by tay wonderful closeness to the Manna 
Ash of Europe, wrote to me on ving a scrap’ with one or two 
samare of the Chinese plant :-— ne T ts exactly match it from my 
: ve 95 
Since describing the Chinese species,** I have received from 
my found Dr. Bretschneider specimens with perfectly ripened fruit, 
Cretan, and Japanese congeners—all of which I have examined—that 
it must form the type of a new subgenus at least, if not rather a 
genus, for which I propose the name of Hemiptelea 
Q. mongolica is very much like Q. Q. seasili iflora, to which 
Pallas erroneously referred it. The verata questio of the distinctness 
of our two commonest European Oaks has perhaps been settled by the 
* “De la variabilité dans l’espece du Poirier ” (Ann. sc. nat., 4° sér., xx., 
188, 
+ ‘*Die Birnbaum ist einer der altesten Bewohner der Garten ” (Dierbach 
Fl. Mytholog., 100.) 
ERS Pliny. (Hist. ark ee 16, 1.) omer by name thirty-eight different 
ok Peng 3 and mella (De pire. rust. v., 10.) eighteen, besides others, 
prestiadl enumeratio si lo 
ensibus a Semenovio coll., 102. 
“os Riis! Journ. Bot. vi., 333. 
