LIFE AND WRITINGS OF M. DE MAUTIUS, 41 



It is only when the humidity begins to linger in the damp and shady 

 valleys throughout the year that the Flora changes its character. This 

 we find to be the case in many parts of the valley of the Nerbada, and 

 in the deeper ravines of the Ghats of the Concan. The number of 

 peculiar forms increases as we go southward, and is very great in the 

 forests of Travancore and Ceylon. So in the Central Himalaya, humid 

 forms appear as far west as Kumaon, increase in numbers in Nipal, 

 predominate in Sikkim, and are universal in Assam. In Malaya, where 

 the climate is humid at all seasons, we have the Flora of the Archipe- 

 lago, the richest and most varied which is found in any part of India. 

 I might illustrate each of these floras at great length, but the object 

 of this paper is not to bring forward examples of each, but to induce 

 botanists to lend their assistance in establishing their limits on a sure 

 basis of observation, by collecting as far as they can, and transmitting 

 for examination and comparison, the plants of their respective neigh- 

 bourhoods, so that the exact area inhabited by every species may be 

 ascertained, and the main facts of the Geographical Botany of India 

 be accurately determined. 



Sketch of the Life and Writings of M. de Maetius, Secretary to the 

 Bavarian Academy of Science; by Alphonse de Candolle. 



( Con tinned from p. 10.) 



Such are the principal publications which Martins has performed or 

 inspected, and it is superfluous after them to enumerate the essays, 

 pamphlets, and articles in periodical works, whose list alone would fill 

 several pages. I would only specify his descriptions and figures of the 

 Palms collected by D'Orbigny, some important tracts on Kriocaulon and 

 Xyris, and a valuable treatise, conjointly with Xees, on the plants col- 

 lected during the expedition of the Prince de Neuwied. Martius wm 

 one of the first to ascertain and describe the Potato disease; he has 



Aable physiology, and fossil plants ; he trans- 

 lated into English the work of Sir Humphry Davy on the Travels 

 and Latter Days of a Naturalist; and analyzed numerous French, 

 English, Italian, and Portuguese publications in the Munich < Gelehrte , 

 Anzeigen.' It is impossible to enter into such details I would convey 



ready 



VOL. IX. 



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