400 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NA1VRAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1890. 



of home association's 1 ] to pronounce Bombay as one of the most 

 " highly-favoured" localities for gardening. It is not only possible to 

 have a magnificent display of flowers at almost all seasons of the 

 year, but the luxuriance of an enormous variety of foliage plants, 

 peculiar for the grandeur or gracefulness of their features, or for the 

 brightness and variety of their colour, can hardly be surpassed in auy 

 other country in the world. The origin of the plante, commonly met 

 with in Bombay gardens, speaks volumes for the keen interest and 

 enterprise in the introduction of new plants, which has, for year after 

 year, distinguished the inhabitants of this city, and to whom it is 

 mainly due that we can now unflinchingly protest against the first 

 statement of our old friend " Firminger," namely, this : " Under the 

 most favourable point of view it can hardly be said that horticulture 

 has as yet made much advancement in India." It is a remarkable 

 fact that comparatively few of our garden plants are of indigenous 

 origin ; but that by far the greatest and most effective proportion hail 

 from tropical America, Madagascar, East Africa, the Malay Archipel- 

 ago and South Sea Islands, a number from Ceylon, Northern India, 

 Japan, and China, and a few from Australia, South Africa, and 

 Southern Europe, but hardly any from extra tropical America or even 

 from the west side of South America. But, as far as my experience 

 goes, I do not think it improbable that by far the majority of plants 

 indigenous in tropical India, British Gruiana, Brazil, Columbia, 

 West Indies, Tropical Africa, Soiifh Sea Islands, Java, Phillipines, 

 Ceylon, Malay •Peninsula, Burm nh, and the Lower Himalayas, and 

 perhaps tropical Australia, will have a good chance of success in 

 Bombay. If this should hold good it will be seen what a wide field 

 there is still left for the future introduction of plants, of which but 

 comparatively few have hitherto been introduced to Europe. If, 

 therefore, any member of our Soeiety should happen to have friends 

 resident in any of these countries, they would do a most valuable 

 service to gardening in Bombay, and to botany generally, byrequest- 

 ing them to send them seeds of indigenous plants from such places, 

 outlying districts in India not excepted. The peculiarities of the 

 climate of Bombay must necessarily be known in order to enable us 

 to form a judgment of the probable successful cultivation of plants 

 from different countries. I shall therefore shortly summarise it* 



