276 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BOTANY OF [ Gentianee. 
doses in which they themselves are in the habit of administering it. Chemical analysis, 
finally, will reveal the hidden principle, and enable us to dispense with the great 
mass of vegetable matter which is now prescribed for the sake of a few grains of 
energetic principle. Perseverance in such a course for a few years will not only 
encrease the present resources of medical officers wherever they may be situated, but: 
by attaching a definite character to many of the articles they now eniploy, will give them 
value in Europe; ensure to some of them importance as commercial articles; and have, 
at the same time, a result not less important to a philanthropic mind, that of placing 
within the reach of the immense Native population, a better defined selection of efficient 
agents from their heterogeneous mass of materials than their scientific attainments will 
at present enable them to select. A result which will be appreciated in proportion 
to the improvement of the education of the Native Doctors now taking place under the 
auspices of Government; the effects of which will, in India as elsewhere, descend 
lower and spread wider with the lapse of years. 
Orthanthera viminea. Wight. Contrib. to Botany of India, p. 48. Tab. 66, f. 1. 
Hab. Base of Himalayas, v. supra. ; 
2. Holostemma Brunoniana. Tab. 66. f. 2. : 
I regret that I have been unable to find the specimens from which this very elegant plant has been 
drawn, and which I have named after the illustrious botanist, Mr. Brown, who first threw light on the 
order to which it belongs, and to whom has been unanimously awarded, by the botanists of Europe, 
the title first bestowed on Linneus, of ** Botanicorum Princeps.” 
3. Ceropegia Wallichii. Wight. l.c. p. 32. 
Hab. Nepal. Wall. Lohooghat, in Kemaon. Lindsay. Mussooree and Simla. 
115. GENTIANE#. 
This family, so familiarly known by many of its species forming medicinal plants, 
as well as the ornaments of gardens, is ‘allied on one hand to certain Apocynee, and 
on the other to Polemoniacee, and Scrophularinee.” Though all the species are very 
closely allied in structure and properties, they display the anomaly of some growing in 
very hot places, while the majority occur only in cold and temperate parts of the world. 
The Indian species are about sixty in number, of about four-sixths of which there 
are specimens in the author’s collection. These Mr. D. Don has had the kindness to 
examine and describe in a paper read before the Linnean Society (3d Nov. 1835). 
Gentiana and Swertia he has subdivided, and favoured me with the geographical distribu- 
tion of his new genera; whence it will be seen that here, as elsewhere, circumscription 
of character is not always accompanied by a more limited distribution of a genus. 
The genera inhabiting the plains of India are, Erythrea, Canscora, Exacum, and 
Slevogtea. The first, found in the south of Europe, north of Africa, and New Holland, 
occurs only in the cold weather; the others are peculiar to India. Exacum tetragonum 
extends from Silhet to Kheree; Mr. Don has united with it E. roseum, nob., Ic. ined., 
256, from the sides of Kedarkanta, but which I consider to be distinct. 
The other Indian genera are Crawfurdia and Mr. Don’s Agathotes and Ophelia, all 
found only in the Himalayas, with Swertia and Eurythaha, Don, of which the other 
species 
