The Flora of British India

Abstract

THE completion of the first volume of the Flora of India is an event of no small importance in descriptive botany. That India should be almost the last of our possessions whose vegetable wealth botanists have undertaken to describe in a systematic order, is due to various causes, not the least of which is the enormous labour of collecting and sifting the scattered literature bearing on this subject. The books and short papers on the botany of various parts of India are exceedingly numerous, and several works have been commenced never to be completed. Dr. Hooker himself, in conjunction with Dr. T. Thomson, published some years ago the first volume of a Flora of India based upon a more elaborate plan than that of the work now in progress, which departs from that of the other Colonial Floras, Hooker's “Student's Flora of the British Islands” having served as a model.

The Flora of British India.

By Dr. J. D. Hooker, assisted by various Botanists. Vol. I. Ranunculaceæ to Sapindaceæ. (London: Reeve and Co.)