16 
r. ISAAC HENRY BURKILL, M.A., F.L.S., a Principal cuna. 
in the Royal Botanic Gardens, has been appointed, on the recom- 
mendation of Kew, by the Secretary of State for India in er 
Assistant Reporter on Economic Products to the Government of 
India 
ADRIEN RENÉ FRANCHET.— By the sudden death of this 
botanist on February 14, 1900, France has lost her most eminent 
and most esser umi phytographer, and the students of the 
botany of Easte n Asia, more especially, one of the most amiable 
and the most hososmble o ellow-workers. A. R. Franchet was 
in his sixty-sixth year, an nd 4 the last twenty-five years of. his life 
were principally devoted to the study of the flora of China and 
Japan, beginning with the Enumeratio Plantarum in Japonia 
sponte Crescentium (1875-9), which he compiled in conjunction 
with Dr. L. Savatier, who resided in Japan for some years. One 
of the merits of the Enumeratio for botanical and horticultural 
purposes consists in the references to the illustrations in the 
Japanese classical works Honzo Zufu, Somoku Zusetsu, snd 
Kwa-wi. Dr. Savatier had previously published a translation i 
Ex letterpress of the Kwa-wi, but the figures have not bee 
roduced. The earliest contribution to botanical literata be 
Mt. en that has come under our notice is the foundation of 
Bruniera in 1864 ( Billotia, i., p. 25,t.1) on Lemna arrhiza, L., 
but he had been anticipated by Hor kel and "Schleiden | inregarding 
it as generically distinct. Amen ng his other early papers were 
a on the genus Verbascum, a“ a descriptive mono- 
of the Central European species. But his Flore de Loir-et- 
rre (1885) is his most ipo uit contribution to European 
botany, being a fully descriptive, historical, and geographical 
account of the hn nts of the Department. In the midst of his 
Chinese labours, Franchet found time to elaborate the piano 
collected by the * Mission Révoil" in ‘Somaliland, 1882; the 
plants of the * Mission Capus" in Turkestan (Ann. Se. Nat., 
83-4); and the flowering plants of the French “ Mission 
Scientifique du Cape Horn,” 1882-3. Returning to the botany of 
astern Asia, it may be safely asserted that since the death of 
e. J. Maximowiez there was no botanist who could pretend to 
possess the same critical and detailed knowledge of the plants of 
that region as the late A. R. Franchet. "The titles to his various 
niger ee would fill a page of the Bulletin. They are enge 
f pee and Societies’ publications, but m 
of d em were iss rately as well, and some of them = 
gg illustrated, specials those that originally appeared 
n the Nou Herden Archives du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle de 
the latter are :— Plante Davidiane (the separate 
hrysosplenium ; and Les Carex de l'Asie Orientale. Of the 
Plante Delavayane, an inde ependent octavo illustrated work, 
only three pars appeared, the last in 1890. p at dde Franchet 
described at least 1100 new Chinese species, besides a considerable 
gambr of new genera. Prominent among the genera, of which 
escribed rx ew species, are :—Carez, Gentiana, Life 
