144 MR. C. B. CLARKE ON THE 
I refrain from analyzing in detail the Seirpez and Cyperev ; 
we should find in them many speeies common to our Eastern and 
Nilghiri-Ceylon Regions, and numerous groups with represen- 
tative species in those two Regions; we should also find the 
European component, distinctly marked, coming into India at the 
north-west angle in the shape of Eriophorum, some Scirpus, &c. 
Still, owing to the large number of cosmopolitan species aud 
weeds of enltivation in the Seirpez and Cypere, I do not think 
a laborious analysis would add much to the very strong illustra- 
tions given by the other suborders. 
The existing Flora of British India is supposed to be made up 
of five principal eomponents, in order of time as follows :— 
(1) The Flora of the uncultivated parts of the Deccan, our sub- 
subareas (3) and (5) at 0-4000 feet elevation, is the oldest ; 
it extends to the Gangetie Plain in the North, and many 
species have, in modern geologie times, got over this plaim 
to the drier parts of the Western Himalaya. This Flora 
may be supposed to have had a common origin with the 
Masearene and. African, and 1 propose for it as a name the 
* Indo- African element." 
(2) The Flora of the Eastern Peninsula from Singapore to Assam 
(the Bruhmapootra Valley) may be little less ancient than the 
Indo-African element, aud in the Miocene (?) age or there- 
about it got across directly from the Malay Peninsula to 
the Ceylon and South Malabar Mis. This I have called the 
* Eastern element.” 
(3) The * Central Asian element," which would first enter in 
Tertiary times, but which must have been on the extreme 
north margin of India ever since the Himalaya attained an 
elevation of 12,000 feet. 
(4) The “ European element," whieh arrived shortly after the 
Central Asian at the west end of the Himalaya, and doubt- 
less travelled rapidly east, the continuity of the range 
offering no obstacles. 
(5) The * Quaternary element," which occupies the cultivated 
lands aud roads, and accompanies man. 
