60 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
2. The moist and hot climate of the Concans, where Guttifere, Myris- 
tacee, Zingiberacee, Orchidee, and the like grow. Here I think we shall 
get up a small garden, and so be enabled to grow things from * India 
aquosa"—the Eastern Islands—and so get a climate like Falconer's 
garden at Calcutta. 
3. The climate of Mahableshwur, where I now am, whose elevation 
(2500 feet above the Deccan and 4500 above the sea) and whose awful 
monsoon rain (250 inches) give a different vegetation, and (oh ye powers!) 
what a different climate to the sensations! How pleasant it is now, 
living though I am in a slight tent! to my feeling far superior to what I 
remember of England. Yet piety forbids me to thoroughly think so, 
and suggests that it may be pleasant by contrast from Scinde and Belo- 
chistan. Well! I hope to try in 1855. The balmy feel of the day 
and the nice cold nights, which demand a couple of blankets, contrast 
well with what the Decean is now, with its perspiration by day and its 
tossing by night. And then, too, the morning strawberries and cream, 
and the mealy Mahableshwur potatoes, and the Fuchsias and Heartsease 
in the gardens, and the flowers new to me I meet every day on the hill- 
sides and rocky slopes,—all these predispose a man to take a favourable 
view of everything around him. But to be precise, or as far as I can, 
being here but a botanical griffin, having to make out each individual 
plant, and groping my way like a puppy opening its new eyes—pro- 
cesses unfavourable to a general view, which requires previous and 
digested knowledge. The chief trees are species of Eugenia, Memecy- 
lon, Flacourtia, Pittosporum, Glochidion, Terminalia, ete. etc. The chief 
shrubs, Randia dumetorum, Griffithsia fragrans, Casearia, Solanum 
giganteum, Embelia, Mesa, Chloripetalum, Celastrus, etc. All over the 
hills are coming out the broad leaves of a Roscoea, of a golden-flowered 
Zingiber, of Musa superba, and of several Aroidee. Ledebouria enamels 
the turf, with a pretty Habenaria, Adhatoda trinervia, Curculigo, Iphi- 
genia (Anguillaria Indica), Hypoxis, Crinum, etc. etc. All over grows 
a brake with “ King Charles in his oak," and the “Spread Eagle," as 
in the well-remembered English plant, while a pretty Osmunda near 
waterfalls, Wahlenbergia dehiscens, Utricularia, Plantago Asiatica, and 
others, differ considerably from any plants found in the dry Deccan or — 
the steamy Concan. Geraniums, Fuchsias, Heartsease, and other old 
favourites, grow here in the open air, flowering and looking fresh even 
in May, which is the disheartening month in India. generally, and dries 
