﻿his circumnavigation of the globe, arrived at Macao with his two 

 ships, the 'Nadejda' and the 'Neva,' and stayed there till February, 

 1806.* From that time down to 1853 (Admiral Putiatin's embassy 

 to China and Japan), no Russian ship had been seen in the waters 

 of China, and also no Russian traveller is known to have visited 

 Hong Kong, Canton, or any other port of China. t 



As I was led to suppose that the botanical collection attributed 

 to Seniavin might have found its way to St. Petersburg through 

 Peking, I asked Professor V. P. Vassiliev whether he was able to 

 give any explanation on the matter. This learned sinologist, who 

 from 1840 to 1850 has lived in Peking with the Russian Ecclesi- 

 astical Mission, favoured me with a most convincing conjecture 

 regarding the origin of this interesting collection. He remembers 

 that about 1845 Archimandrite Polycarpos, then at the head of the 

 Mission, despatched an intelligent Chinaman, who was in his 

 service, to the celebrated tea plantations in the province of Fukien 

 to procure specimens of the best tea produced there, and com- 

 missioned him also to purchase, on his way back (he travelled 

 evidently overland and by rivers), some ham at Nanking, which 

 place is famed for this article. The Fukien tea, thus received 

 directly, perhaps from the Bohea Hills, western borders of Fukien, 

 the Archimandrite forwarded to St. Petersburg, and offered it as a 

 present to L. G. Seniavin, who from 1838 to 1851 was Director of 

 the Asiatic Department in the Foreign Office. Prof. Vassiliev 

 thinks it very likely that Dr. Tatarinov, the well-known collector 

 of Peking plants, who then likewise lived in Peking, had given 

 instructions to the Chinaman to collect plants in the regions visited, 

 and these plants may have been sent to Seniavin, together with the 

 tea, and were finally forwarded to Fischer. 



Shadimieovski (Jadimirovski). — Let me at last notice a curious 

 misapprehension with respect to another collection of Chinese 

 plants, for which Dr. F. von Herder is responsible. This well- 

 known botanist, an authority for Siberian plants, for a long time 

 librarian at the Bot. Garden, St. Petersburg, in the Botan. Central' 

 blatt, 1893, p. 2, gives an account of the various herbaria of St. 

 Petersburg. There we read that in the Bot. Museum of the 

 Medico-Chirurgical Academy is kept a collection of Peking plants 

 gathered by Shadimirovski (n. 34). As I had no doubt that a man 

 of this name had never visited Peking, I was curious to inspect this 

 collection. In the said Museum I was shown a bundle of plants 



-j naturalists, G. H. v. Langsdorff and 



- 



I Dr. J. K. ] 



i Alga', chietly i 



which he presented to the c U bint. A iuiii-h ai-- ,lo.,i.-;. Paw-r.ti Turner (177 

 1858), who described them in hi- /• ,o i. l^-l'.i See in vol. i. 1H«>8, 34: Fuau 



h.V- V>r. il.'v 



iful Pohjgonur 



ilso with one of his ships up to Canton. : 

 of December his squadron anchored off 



