226 
Philippine Journal of Science 
1919 
The title “Flora Cochinchinensis” is somewhat misleading, al- 
though more species were described from Cochin China than from 
any other single region. The geographic sources of his material 
are as follows : From Cochin China alone, about 697 ; from China 
alone, about 254 ; from both Cochin China and China, about 292 ; 
from tropical East Africa opposite Zanzibar, 29; from Mozam- 
bique, 9 ; from Zanzibar, 8 ; from India, 5 ; with 1 each from the 
Philippines, Sumatra, and the Malay Peninsula. Most of the 
Chinese material mentioned by Loureiro was from the immediate 
vicinity of Canton, where he resided for a period of three or 
four years. 
In 1774 Loureiro mentions having sent about sixty specimens 
with descriptions to Europe, and in 1779 another lot of two 
hundred thirty specimens. I have not as yet succeeded in lo- 
cating the first lot ; the second shipment apparently consisted of 
those preserved in the herbarium of the British Museum. In 
the herbarium of the Paris Museum of Natural History ninety 
specimens from Loureiro are preserved, these having been se- 
cured by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in Lisbon in 1808. The bulk 
of Loureiro’s collection, however, was retained by him in Lisbon 
and has long since been destroyed. 2 
Of the one thousand two hundred ninety-four species recog- 
nized by Loureiro not more than three hundred eighty are 
represented by known extant botanical material from his col- 
lections. In the much more numerous cases where Loureiro’s 
types are no longer extant, the species must be interpreted from 
the original descriptions and such other data as can be secured 
for the regions in which the specimens were collected. 
Considerable time was devoted to a preliminary study of Lou- 
reiro’s species, and a manuscript commentary on the Flora Co- 
chinchinensis was prepared by me and completed April 15, 1919. 
In this commentary Loureiro’s species, so far as possible, were 
reduced to a family arrangement following the Engler and Prantl 
system. An attempt was made to determine the oldest valid 
specific name for each species and the necessary synonymy was 
added to explain the acceptance of the specific name in each 
case; all local names cited by Loureiro were recorded; and a 
more or less critical discussion of each species was given, to- 
gether with the place of origin for each as cited by Loureiro. 
This manuscript was prepared in six copies, one of which is 
2 De Candolle, A, La Phytographie (1880) 430. 
