IV FLORTTLA ADENENSIS.- 



striking is its flora, that the Arabs, the original possessors of 

 Aden, ages ago appropriated to the rock the Arabic name of its 

 most peculiar and beautiful flower*. 



Since Salt, who visited Aden in. 1809, and probably collected a 

 few plants there, several botanists, on their way to more productive 

 regions, have spent a few hours in exploring its more accessible 

 gorges during the detention of the steamer for a supply of coals. 

 In 1846 M. P. Edgeworth, Esq., of the Bengal Civil Service, a 

 gentleman well known by his valuable memoirs on Indian Botany 

 and his long-continued labours in the cause of that science in 

 India, collected 42 species within a very circumscribed area ; the 

 result of which limited botanical excursion was communicated to 

 the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1847. The insurmountable 

 difficulties attending the identification of such obsctire species as 

 those composing the Aden flora, without having access to exten- 

 sive libraries and herbaria, are shown by the alterations I have 

 made in many of the specific names proposed by Mr. Edgeworth ; 

 while at the same time his valuable suggestions and accurate de- 

 scriptions prove his extensive knowledge of genera and species. 

 Fortunately for our knowledge of the flora, Dr. J. D. Hooker, on 

 his route to India in 1847, remained two days at Aden, and made 

 a most extensive and nearly complete collection of its plants. 



On his return to England in 1851, with the assistance of Dr. T. 

 Thomson, his fellow-traveller, he largely increased the number of 

 specimens of his previous collection, and also added some species 

 to the list. Lieut.- Colonel Madden and Sir Robert Schomburgk 

 have also contributed a few species from Aden among their general 

 collections sent to Sir W. Hooker. While detained at Aden on 

 my return from India in May 1859, I was enabled to make two 

 short excursions nearly to the centre of the peninsula, and, consi- 

 dering the limited character of the flora, I secured an extensive 

 set of specimens of nearly all its species. I was so fortunate as 

 to find most in a good state for identification ; the result of a 

 copious fall of rain which had occurred about three weeks before 

 my visit, and which had brought most of the plants into flower, 

 and imparted a slight tint of green to many of the least sterile 



* " Aden " is the Arabic name of that beautiful and remarkable shrub the 

 Adenium obestim (Nerium olesum, Forsk.). The European residents consider 

 the species as quite peculiar to Aden ; but this is an error, as it is found on some 

 of the rocky promontories along the coast of the Eed Sea. The name Adenium, 

 adopted by Koemer and Schultz for this and another species (A. Hongel), is 

 merely the Arabic name Latinized. 



