SUPPLEMENT 



TO THE 



FLORA HONGKONGENSIS. 



Eathee more than ten years have elapsed since the publication 

 of Mr. Bentham's 'Mora Hongkongensia,' the importance of 

 which, to the student of the South-Asiatic flora, it would be dif- 

 ficult to overrate. Until it appeared, the only works available 

 for consultation, except general systematic ones, such as the 

 ' Prodromus ' of DeCandoUe" and Kunth's ' Enumeratio,' were 

 Loureiro's ' Flora Cochinchinensis,' Meyer's ' Observationes Bota- 

 nicsB,' the ' Botany ' of Beechey's Voyage, and that of H.M.S. 

 ' Herald' — the last containing a tolerably complete list (but un- 

 fortunately little more than a list) of Hongkong plants, and the 

 others being far too incomplete and unreliable for any useful pur- 

 pose. To the above might be added Wight and Arnott's ' Pro- 

 dromus Plorse peninsulae Indise orientalis,' and Hooker and 

 Thomson's ' Plora Indica ;' but the former, remarkable for the 

 judgment and ability with which it is composed, extends only, 

 following the Candollean sequence, to Dipsaeaceas ; whilst the 

 second breaks off at Pumariacea), and can only be regarded as a 

 specimen of what the authors would have desired to accomplish 

 had entire leisure and the requisite Q-overnment suppCrt been at 

 their disposal. Eoxburgh'a ' Plora Indica ' has long been unpro- 

 curable. The 'Plora Indise Batavse' of the late Prof. Miquel, 

 published in five thick volumes from 1855 to 1861, is unquestion- 

 ably an important contribution to botanical science ; but it is far 

 too much of a compilation, the characters being, for the most 

 part, copied without alteration or examination from general sys- 

 tematic works ; and there is too little critical spirit displayed in 

 the limitation of the species (which are unreasonably multiplied) 

 for it to be safely placed in the hands of unpractised botanists, 

 who would be likely to acquire exaggerated ideas of the value of 

 differences to which experienced students attach little weight. 

 Mr. Bentham's book remains, in fact, at present, the most useful 

 and complete of its kind ; and while its comprehensive views ad- 

 mirably adapt it to train a young botaaiist judiciously and steer 



