JOURNAL 
OF THE 
NOETH-CHINA BBANCH 
OF THE 
ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 
ARTICLE I. 
EARLY EUROPEAN RESEARCHES INTO THE 
FLORA OF CHINA* 
BY 
E. Beetschneider, M.D, 
TT is proposed in the following pages to give a sketch of 
I early botanical researches in China by European naturalists 
and at the same time to rescue from oblivion Some curious 
ancient documents showing the early attempts to illustrate the 
botanical features of the Middle Kingdom. I have thought 
that a critical review of these accounts in the light of modern 
science and a republication of some of them, which I found 
hidden in ancient periodicals, now little known and difficult 
of access, would prove of some interest and be even practically 
useful to collectors of Chinese plants and writers on the same 
subject. 
Although many of the celebrated Chinese vegetable produc¬ 
tions are mentioned in the book of Marco Polo and by other 
European mediaeval travellers in China, I do not intend to trace 
our early acquaintance with Chinese plants back as far as the 
middle ages. In my investigations I shall start from that 
period when these regions became first known to us through 
the learned and hard-working Jesuit missionaries, the illustri¬ 
ous pioneers of Oriental studies in the far East. On the other 
side, I shall not extend the area of my researches beyond the 
Linnean period. _ . ______ 
# Bead before the Society on the 19fch November, 1880. 
