PREFACE. 



In 1857 I published an enumeration of all Caribbean plants known up to 

 that time ; the materials from which this paper was drawn up chiefly con- 

 sisting of an extensive herbarium collected in the island of Guadaloupe 

 by Dr. Duchassaing, a French physician. At about the same period, Sir 

 W. Hooker was exerting himself to procure the publication of a complete 

 series of Colonial Floras (a vast scientific undertaking which could never be 

 carried out, except through powerful influence such as he possessed), and 

 consequently entrusted the elaboration of the present volume to myself, putting 

 all the materials of the Hookerian Herbarium and the Kew Museums at my 

 disposal, and procuring a grant of £300 from the British Government to meet 

 the necessary expenses. As many thousands of dried plants had to be ex- 

 amined, and new collections were being formed in the colonies while the work 

 proceeded, the labour was considerable, and eventually occupied more than 

 six years, uninterruptedly. Four times I went over to England, to compare 

 my own West Indian herbarium with that at Kew; whilst all those forms 

 which proved not to be in my possession, were most liberally placed in my 

 hands to be examined at Gottingen. These and other collections have 

 now been returned to Kew, with my labels, and will hence be accessible 

 authorities for the species I have described. For a series of doubtful West 

 Indian plants mentioned by older authors I have, when sojourning in London, 

 consulted the Banksian collection of the British Museum, but not to as great 

 an extent as might have been desirable. All those Swartzian species, how- 

 ever, which I had no opportunity of seeing there, were kindly sent for inspec- 

 tion by Professor Andersson, of Stockholm, and these proved most important ; 

 for the specimens which Swartz has communicated to Willdenow and other 

 German botanists, are often incorrectly labelled : hence the only authentic 

 information as to certain Swartzian species is to be derived from his origi- 

 nals, either in the possession of the Academy of Stockholm, or of the British 

 Museum. 



The ' Flora of the British West Indies ' is intended to be a synopsis of all 

 vascular plants as yet known to inhabit the British West Indian possessions. 

 Of cultivated plants only those are mentioned which are said to be naturalized 

 in the country. Though reaching beyond the tropics (north lat. 10° to 27°), 

 the West Indiau islands present an entirely tropical character in their vege- 

 table productions, and the Northern Bahamas in this respect are quite distinct 



