8 DE» H. P. HANOB'S STTPPLEMENT TO 



him clear of extreme opinions, the excellent plan adopted, of 

 indicating the geographical range of each species, interests him in 

 those problems of plant-distribution which are so intimately con- 

 nected with the great and contested questions of the origin, dis- 

 persion, and variation of living organisms. 



During the ten years that have passed by since its appearance, 

 a number of species (representing rather more than 7 per cent., 

 or one fourteenth of the actual number hitherto recorded) have 

 been added to the flora ; and the writer believes that he is per- 

 forming a useful task in briuging these together in the form of a 

 supplement, indicating, so far as he is able, their geographical 

 distribution, noting at the same time such rectifications or 

 changes of nomenclature in previously known species as subse- 

 quent researches have rendered necessary or desirable, and adding 

 here and there critical or other observations of his own. In some 

 instances he has ventured to express dissent from Mr. Bentham's 

 views, assuredly not in any spirit of presumption, but because it 

 is. not always possible to relinquish one's own opinions in defer- 

 ence to any authority however high. Had the distinguished 

 author himself had leisure to undertake this task, the writer 

 would never have ventured on it ; but the enormous labour in- 

 volved in the preparation of the ' Grenera Plantarum ' and the 

 ' Flora Australiensis ' has for some years past entirely diverted 

 Mr. Bentham's attention from Chinese botany. More than 

 twenty years' constant study of the flora of the island and adja- 

 cent continent on the part of the writer may be held to confer 

 on him some qualification ; and the circumstance that almost 

 every new plant detected in Southern China within the past ten 

 years has been described by himself, rendering the citation of his 

 own name frequently necessary, has given an unavoidably egotis- 

 tical appearance to the following pages. Eesiding at a distance 

 from any large centre of civilization, and deprived of the opportu- 

 nity of consulting extensive libraries or obtaining the advice of 

 more experienced botanists, he has necessarily laboured under 

 many disadvantages ; but he can conscientiously state that he 

 has spared no pains to render the following enumeration as com- 

 plete and trustworthy as possible ; and he desires particularly to 

 say that in no single instance has he quoted a botanical work on 

 the authority of others, every reference, whether to text or plates, 

 having been personally verified. 



The species new to the flora of Hongkong enumerated in the 



