225 
Livingstone’ s original fragmentary specimen of the Buáze plant, 
whieh consisting merely of foliage was indeterminable at the time, exists 
in the Kew Herbarium. e botanical identification is due to Sir John 
Kirk, G.C.M.G., late Political Agent at Zanzibar; who during his 
attachment to the Livingstone South African expedition in 1859, and to 
the Zambesi Expedition in 1861, obtained an excellent series of specimens 
both in flower and fruit. The Buáze plant is well figured by Richard 
in his Tentamen Flora Abyssinice, t. 10, under the name of Lophostylis 
angustifolia, and by Klotzsch in Peters's Mozambique, t. 22, as Lopho- 
stylis pallida, Both names now give way to that at the head of this 
article. 
otwithstanding the comparatively favourable report on this fibre 
received so far back as 1857, nothing has since been done to further its 
utilization in this country. 
CIX.—VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS, CENTRAL CHINA. 
There is no part of the northern hemisphere of which the flora 
has hitherto been so imperfectly known as the Chinese empire. The 
late well-known botanist Dr. Hance remarked in 1874 :—‘ Whilst M. 
* Maximowicz’s excellent and very complete Index Flore Pekinensis 
* provides a good catalogue of the flora of the Chinese metropolis and 
* its vicinity, and Mr. Bentham's classical Flora Hongkongensis 
* has acquainted us with the principal constituents of that of the 
* extreme south-east of the empire, nothing whatever of a scientific 
led 
egetati 
of the districts intermediate to these two points, which are separated 
by 17 degrees of latitude, or of the various ports of trade along the 
* coast, or on the Yan 
In order to remedy this state of things js Bex step seemed to be to 
talogue the notices of Chinese plants tered through botanical 
literature and systematic det the species of which 
specimens by travellers in China were to be found in the 
Herbaria of the British Museum and wW. r this purpose a small 
Mr. F. B. Forbes, F.L.S. who had long resided in China, having very 
esee placed in the hands of the Committee the oo collec- 
which he had made with a similar object. As the catalogue has 
been compiled by Mr. W. B. Hemsley, aui Assistant for India in the 
w Herbarium, it has been set up in type and copies distributed to 
pec 
greatest value and importance has poured i in, and there is some risk 
it may be ditficult to compress the undertaking within the modest limits 
which were at first agnum 
he first p issued May 20, 1886. Two parts have been 
regularly published in in each year since ‘that date, and the seventh part, 
ringing the enumeration down to the Yuprimisiee, was issued April 30 
