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ON THE FLORA OF CUTCH. 



BY 



E. Blatter, s.j. 



Part I. 



The flora of Cutcli has received very little attention on the part of 

 botanical explorers. There is scarcely any other part in India that is 

 so seldom mentioned in floristic works as Cutch. Much less are we 

 able to find any special publication on its vegetation. When Hooker 

 and Thomson published their " Flora Indica" in 1855, they gave us 

 in the ''Introductory Essay" a valuable account of the physical and 

 botanical features of the various parts of India, but regarding Cutch 

 we read only the following remarks : " The district of Kach, which 

 is separated from Katiwar by the Gulf of Kach, a narrow arm of the 

 sea, from Sindhby the most eastern branch of the Indus, and from 

 Marwar by the Rann (a very singular saline and more or less marshy 

 plain, in which the river Luni loses itself) has a very similar climate 

 to the peninsula of Gujarat, being like that traversed by a range of 

 hills running from West to East. It may, therefore, (for our purposes) 

 with more propriety be considered a part of Gujarat, than to belong to 

 Sindh, to which physically as well as politically it is more nearly 

 related. The northern districts of both Kach and Katiwar, beino- 

 screened from the rain-bringing windsby the hills, are extremely arid."-!- 

 Since the time when this was written, the countries surrounding 

 Cutch have been explored more minutely as regards their flora, and 

 the physical and meteorological conditions prevailing in them are 

 better known. This will enable us later on to decide the question 

 whether Cutch ought to be considered a part of the botanical 

 province of Gujarat or of Sind. The last 50 years did not add 

 much to our knowledge of the flora of Cutch. Here we are 

 speaking of the printed records only, for we are not so fortunate as to 

 have access to the extensive herbaria of Europe which very likely 

 contain specimens also of Cutch. Of the former only one came under 

 our notice. It is a list of the plants of Cutch, prepared by Colonel 

 0. T. Palin as a contribution to Vol. V. of the Bombay Gazetteer in 

 1880. The circumstance that the habitat and flowering time is added 

 to the names of many species make the catalogue a very valuable 



1 . Hooker, J. D., and Thomson, T., Flora Indica, Vo!. I., p. 150. 



