﻿294 ON SOME OLD COLLECTIONS OF CHINESE PLANTS. 



be identical with 8. lanceolata and 8. cantoniensis, the latter being 

 the oldest name of the plant. 



The introduction from China of Canna Reevedi, which flowered 

 in the Society's garden in 1837, seems likewise to be due to the 

 younger Reeves. Lindley, in Bot. Reg. t. 2204 (1837), says :— 

 " Of this most beautiful species of Canna, drawings of which were 

 long since sent to England from China, seeds have been at length 

 procured by Mr. Reeves, to whom we owe so many of the finest 

 plants from China, now in the gardens of England." 



In Trans. Hurt. Soc. n. s. ii. 417-19, Lindley notices the fol- 

 lowing plants cultivated in the Society's garden, which had been 

 sent from China by Mr. Reeves, between 1832 and 1838 .—Deutzia 

 scabra, Acer palmatum, Kerria japonica flor. simpl., Prunus japonica 

 flor. simpl., Dolichos soja. He evidently means the younger Reeves. 



As the name Reeves frequently appears in the Index Ft. Sin., 

 I asked Mr. Hemsley, to whose generous and obliging aid in my 

 investigations regarding old botanical collections I owe much, for 

 information ; and he kindly looked up for me a number of Reevesian 

 plants in the Kew Herbarium. He found them all labelled : Mr. 

 John Reeves, or Mr. Reeves, ex herb. Brown ; some labelled Can- 

 Presuming that perhaps in the herbarium of the Horticultural 

 Society some new information with respect to the two Reeveses and 

 other collectors for the Society, in China, might be found, I ad- 

 dressed on the subject Mr. James Bateman, whom I believed to 

 have been connected with the old Horticultural Society. This 

 gentleman, notwithstanding his great age, most obligingly answered 

 my letter ; but I was disappointed at learning from his communi- 

 cations that nothing deserving the name of an herbarium ever existed 

 in the Horticultural Society, but that Lindley had formed (I under- 

 stand from the plants transmitted to the Society) an excellent 

 herbarium, chiefly orchids. Thus it would seem that information 

 regarding the two Reeveses may be expected from Lindley's corre- 

 spondence, which I suppose has not been lost. 



Descendants of the Reeveses probably exist in London or other 

 places of Great Britain. Mr. Carruthers, in his Report Bot. Dept. 

 Brit. Mus. for 1877, states that in that year 654 Chinese drawings of 

 plants, executed under the superintendence of the late John Reeves, 

 were presented to the British Museum by Miss Reeves. 



T. Alexander. — Sir W. J. Hooker, in enumerating or describing 

 the Filices in Bentham's Florula Hongkongensis, Kew Journ. Bot. 

 ix. 1857, pp. 333-44, 353-63, frequently mentions the name of 

 T. Alexander, sometimes styled Dr. Alexander, who is reported there 

 to have collected, chiefly in Chusan, but also in Loochoo Islands, at 

 Foochow, Amoy, in Hong Kong, and at several localities situated 

 on the Chinese coast, as Bullock Bay, Samsa Bay, Tungtan Inlet, 

 Pihqwan Isl., &c. Alexander is first noticed by Hooker in Kew 

 Joum. Bot. v. 1853, 236, under Aspidium podophyllum, sp. nov., 

 "Chusan," Dr. Alexander: time not given. Bentham, Ft. Ilowjk. 

 (1861), preface, 11, mentions T. Alexander, Esq., among the early 

 botanical collectors in the island. 



