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West End Park.-Work on this open space has been confined to periodical weeding, chiefly to keep down Mimosa, and to the prevention of its use as a shooting ground for builders rubbish, for which it seems to offer irresistible attraction. The park is little used.
Government Offices Grounds.-These have been kept in a neat condition during the year. An improvement has been effected by extending the blue grass to cover more of the bare ground under the trees where turf will not grow.
Roadside Rockeries and Banks.-A list of these plots together with the larger grounds under the care of this department is appended in Table II. They have all been cared for in due course. The new rockery constructed by this department on the North side of the Cathedral and at the expense of the Church Body is a great improvement to the neighbourhood.
Public Decorations -The chief decorations undertaken during the year were those in honour of H.R.H. PRINCE ARTHUR OF CONNAUGHT's visit in February.
HERBARIUM.
The Fokien collection and Mr. WILSON's collection referred to in last year's report were mounted and laid in during the year. The department took a large share in the collection of local products asked for by the Director of the Imperial Institute of London in order to complete as far as possible the Hongkong Court of that establishment. The Herbarium was enriched by specimens of all the vegetable economic products thus collected by this and other departments.
There is no museum of economic products in the Colony, and duplicates of the actual articles sent to London could not therefore be preserved: they can, however, be obtained when required without much difficulty. The specimens retained for reference are merely herbarium vouchers for the botanical origin of the economic products sent, which were classified and registered under their botanical names. The various items in all amounted to about 500 and their collection, botanical identification, and the compiling of notes as to their origin, manufacture, uses, etc., has of course absorbed a large amount of time, but it is hoped that this will be justified by the extended information concerning South China products placed at the disposal of the Imperial Institute staff and also by the basis which is now formed for a future economic botanical museum in the Colony. Now that attention has been turned to this side of the Herbarium it is hoped that time will be found to accumulate a fairly complete set of Chinese economic plants.
The principal collection of wild plants added was that made by the Superintendent in Korea in September. Though the numbers are small (about 400) they are nearly all new to the Colonial Herbarium, a number are additions to the Korean collections already at Kew, to which duplicates will be sent, while not a few are fresh records for the country or species
new to science.
Fleet-Surgeon C. G. MATTHEW, R.N., whose welcome return to the East on H.M.S. Monmouth occurred during the year, has determined the ferns of the Fokien and Korean collections and has very kindly got together a series of new specimens of local ferns for the herbarium. These are not only much better dried than the old ones but are also more complete and representative.
This is an appropriate occasion on which to thank Captain HODGINS of the S. S. Haiching for the trouble and expense which he has incurred in making several collections of economic products and plants at Foochow for our herbarium and gardens.
The chief donors of Herbarium specimens other than the above were:
Comte DE BOISSIEU, Mr. E. MERRILL and Sir ERNEST SATOW.
BOTANICAL INVESTIGATIONS.
Water Chestnut. An enquiry was received from the Reporter on Economic Products to the Government of India regarding the botanical identity of Singapuri Kysus with Eleocharis tuberosus, the water chestnut of China. It was ascertained that the latter is