xlviii INTRODUCTION. 
3, Rubiaceew, 594; 4, Urticacee, 448; 5, Graminee, 430; 6, Euphorbiacee, 265 ; 
7, Acanthacee, 257; 8, Composite, 250; 9, Laurinee, 234; 10, Palme, 234; 11, 
Melastomaceze, 224; 12, Myrtacee, 215. The total number of phanerogams is set 
down as 9118 species; and the monocotyledons and dicotyledons are as 1 to 3°5. It 
should be added that Miquel’s enumeration is very far from complete for many of the 
islands. 
Sufficient particulars have been given of the botany of British India as a whole, and 
it is not intended attempting to characterize the subregions. It may be mentioned 
in passing, however, that Malayan types have penetrated to the flank of the Himalayas 
and traversed the Deccan peninsula to Ceylon. Thwaites, who enumerates upwards of 
2600 phanerogams in Ceylon *, states that the hill Flora resembles very much that of 
the Neilgherries ; in the humid south it is more akin to that of the Malay Archipelago, 
and in the dry north it is very nearly identical with that of the Coromandel coast. 
The supposed special relationships between the Flora of the Deccan peninsula of 
India and those of Madagascar and tropical Africa alluded to by many writers, are 
probably not greater than those existing between the African region and Malaya. 
The South-American Region. 
The data brought together in the Appendix relative to the composition and the 
distribution of the Flora of Central America and Mexico demonstrate very clearly 
that, apart from the peculiar Mexican element and the southward extensions of 
northern types, there are two other distinct elements, namely, the Andine and the 
Tropical, answering to the two subregions of the South-American region. Though 
only two subregions are recognizable, the development of the types characteristic of 
each of these subregions varies very much in different areas. Thus, Chili, considered 
as a province of the Andine subregion, has Californian connections, and wants some 
of the most characteristic and universal of South-American types, while others attain 
their maximum development in this province. These peculiarities are chiefly due to 
the varying amounts of heat and moisture in different districts. Similar conditions 
produce similar results in some districts east of the Andes. How far many of the 
characteristic types are generally spread in the South-American region, and within 
* «Enumeratio Plantarum Zeylaniz.’ 
+ Polakowsky, H., “ Die Pflanzenwelt von Costa Rica” (16 Jahresb., Ver. Erdk. Dresden, 187 9, pp. 26-124, 
mit einer pflanzengeogr. Karte), Just. Bot. Jahresb. viii. (1880), 2, pp. 502-506. In this paper, previously 
overlooked, the author gives a sketch of the composition and physiognomies of the vegetation, and brings 
together all the data afforded by his own collections and professedly those of CErsted, Warscewicz, Wagner, 
Scherzer, Wendland, and Hoffmann. He tabulates the number of species of the natural orders, and his totals 
are :—Monocotyledons 209, Dicotyledons 748=957, or 129 less than our total (Vol. IV. p. 218). But the 
total is made up in a very different way. Thus, Polakowsky enumerates 127 Composite against our 100, and 
only 57 Orchides against our 210. 
