THE FLORA OF THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY. 563 



i>. The Malay Peninsula, from Khedah to Singapore, including 

 the British Protected States in this Peninsula. The British 

 Provinces proper are Wellesley, the Island of Penang, 

 Malacca, and Singapore. 1 



A glance at the map of India shows at ouce that the Bombay 

 Presidency belongs to three of these botanical regions : Sind, 

 Cutch, Northern Gujarat to the Indus Plain region, Khandesh, the 

 Konkan, and Kanara to the Malabar region, and the rest to the 

 Deccan region. We should, accordingly, expect the Bombay Flora 

 to be a very rich one, the more so, because the geographical and 

 climatic features of the Presidency show a great variety. But, not- 

 withstanding the extent of the Bombay Presidency, its diversified 

 surface, and its variations in climate and soil, it is impossible to 

 characterise its flora as a rich one, I am even tempted to call it 

 poor. The total number of species of indigenous flowering plants is 

 about 2,530. 2 It is estimated that the Eastern Himalayan region 

 contains about 4,000 species, the Western Himalayan about the same 

 number ; the Ceylon region, which is very small compared with the 

 Bombay Presidency, contains 2,800 species, the Burmese 4,500, and 

 the Malayan about b',000. 



The 2,530 species of our Presidency are comprised in 142 Orders 3 

 no doubt, a great number, if we consider that the whole Flora of 

 British India, approaching 17,000 species, belongs to 17b' Orders. 

 But we must not forget that 42 out of 142 Orders contain one genus 

 only, and 22 Orders not more than two. Of the former 20 Orders 

 contain only one species : Magnoliacece, Pajjaveracew, Fumariacece., 



1 Taken from the Imperial Gazetteer of India, Voi. I, p. 163. 



2 This and other numbers regarding the Bombay Flora have been gathered from the 

 following sources : — 



Cooke, Flora of the Presidency of Bombay, Vol. I, Vol. II, Part 1, 2, 3. 



W. A. Talbot, Systematic List of the Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Climbers of the Bombay 

 Presidency. 



G. M. Woodrow, Catalogue of the Flora of Western India (In the Journal of the Bombay 

 Natural History Society, Vols. XI, XII, XIII). 



J. D. Hooker, FL ra of Bridsn India, Vols. I— VII. 



Besides, the Herbaria of the B. mbay Natural History Society, of St. Xavier's College, 

 and of the Science College in Poona have been consulted. 



I follow, for practical reasons, the system of Bentham and Hooker, proposed in their 

 Genera Plantarum, which has remained the standard one in Britain, though on the Continent 

 it has long been superseded by the more natural system exposed by Fngler in " Die Natiir- 

 lichen Pflanzenfamilien." 



