SUBSUBAREAS OF BRITISH INDIA. 3 
13 hour (I estimate on the average) of all my working days for 
eight months. 
I mention this as it is the primary consideration in a scheme 
of subsubareas how the work upon the framework is to come 
within manageable dimension. I made the number of sub- 
subareas 11; from my experience I strongly opine that this 
number is quite larze enough. I am sure that anyone who 
tabulates on a larger number will be overwhelmed if he attempts 
to deal with any considerable part of the Flora of India. 
The subsubareas ean be mado more natural by further sub- 
division ; it has been pointed out to me that the mountainous 
south-west of Ceylon is distinct as a biologie region from the 
drier north-east. In applying to my friends for suggestions, T 
have always asked them to show ime how to improve my scheme 
of subsubareas of India, the number of such subsubareas re- 
maining 11 or less. 
So far as areas of reference are concerned, it is to be noted 
that it is no use giving them accurately-defined boundaries 
unless collectors note the habitats of their collections with 
reference to these. If I make the Tropic of Cancer the limit of 
a subsubarea and a collector has ticketed a plant “Chota Nag- 
pore,” I cannot refer it to any subsubarea. Now the “type” 
examples of nearly the whole of the Indian Flora have already 
been collected, so that the scheme of subsubareas has to be 
largely confined to the problem of devising such subsubareas as 
will admit the standard material for the Flora of British India 
being referred to them. A very large pereentage of this 
material is ticketed as having been collected at a very limited 
number of localities, as ** North-west Himalayas,” **Pegu," 
“Moradabad” ; it is this fact which has enabled me to carry out 
tho tabulation of the plants at all. Large numbers of Wight's 
plants are only ticketed “ Madras," or “herb. Madras"; and 
the majority of these carried into Wallich’s herbarium have, of 
course, no better localization; I have tabulated these, as a rule, 
in subsubarea 5, Coromandelia, but it is known that many came 
from Malabaria and Ceylon. So the plants of Griffith, with the 
printed Kew label ** East Bengal" on them, came some from 
Darjeeling, some from East Bengal Plain, some from Khasia, 
some from other places. The percentage of doubt and guess 
thus introduced is so large, that I can lay no great stress on the 
numerical results. I have withdrawn the tabies showing the 
B2 
