42 
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
systematic botanists in Germany, published in the tenth volume 
of Engler's " Jahrbuch " a complete monograph of the genus, 
which was afterwards brought out as a separate work. By 
this date the greater proportion of new species discovered by the 
French missionaries in Western China had been described. He 
includes 135 species, which he classifies under twenty groups, 
two of which (Floribundae and Auriculae) have the edges of 
young leaves involute, and all the others the edges of the 
young leaves revolute. He gives a key under each group show- 
ing the characters of the species, and traces out carefully their 
synonymy and geographical distribution, giving also an account 
of the hybrids and an historical review of the genus, and a full 
account of the range of character shown by the difierent organs. 
This work leaves little to be desired as a monograph, except that 
I think the number of groups might be reduced with advantage ; 
but, unfortunately, it is only accessible in German. I will return 
to the groups later on in my paper. 
Another work, also in German, is E. Widmer's " Monograph 
of the European Primulas and their Hybrids," pablislied at 
Munich in 1891. The author was a pupil of the celebrated 
Professor Naegeli, who contributes an introduction. This work 
deals with the European Primulas with characteristic German 
exhaustiveness, 154 pages being devoted to general remarks, and 
the description of 22 species, their varieties and hybrids. It is 
especially valuable, from the cultivator's point of view, for the 
full account which it gives of the hybrids of the Auricula group. 
The following are the principal papers and local floras which 
contain an account of the new species which have been dis- 
covered during the last twenty years. Dr. Franchet's first 
paper on the new species collected by the Abbe Dclavay iu 
Western China was published in 18H5 in the 32nd volume of the 
Bulletin of the Botanical Society of France. In this 16 
new species were described. In his second paper, published in 
the same journal a year later, 12 new species are added. 
In April 1888 he published in iho Bulletin of the Philoinatliique 
Society of Par in a conspectus of the 11 Japanese Primulas. 
In the Journal de Botanique for 1891, in a paper written in 
concert with M. r>iirc;iu, he described five new species discovered 
by Prince Henri d'Orlcans and his companions in their travels 
in Western China and Tibet. In the third part of the third 
