botanists of the present day, Mr Robert Brown. Death, however, 
| . prevented his accomplishing this object, which he had so much 
| mal instances it is difficult to penetrate the real meaning of the author: 
PREFACE. | xiii 
Willdenow. Those of Heyne by Roth, in his Nove Plantarum Species : 
Heyne appears to have been rather a diligent collector than a practical 
botanist; his collections were either obtained from, and were named by, 
Roxburgh; or were made in Mysore and the southern provinces, and 
the names attached by Rottler. 
We ought not to pass over here the labours of Sonnerat and the other 
French naturalists settled at Pondicherry : immense collections seem to 
have been. made and transmitted to France.: These have not been de- 
scribed in any regular form, but such specimens as were presented to 
Lamarck, have been introduced into his Encyclopedie Methodique, a work — 
from which, although its alphabetical arrangement renders it very diffi- 
cult of consultation, particularly in those genera which have been much 
subdivided of late years, we have reaped great information. 
Dr William Roxburgh was the first to describe fully, accurately, and — 
reduce to the form of a Flora, according to the Linnean system, the — — 
riches of the East. During the earlier part of his career he resided in — 
the Peninsula, particularly about Samulcottah, where he had ample op- — 
portunities of examining the botany of the neighbouring Cirear moun- 
tains. In the autumn of 1793, from his great merit, he was removed to _ 
Calcutta, to undertake the superintendence of the Company's Botanie — 
Garden there: here he remained till 1814, adding new descriptions to — 
his manuscript, when “ the illness which unhappily terminated in de- 
priving the world of his labours, compelled him to undertake a voyage 
for the sake of his health, which he at first intended should have been. 
only to the Cape. His declining state of health, however, induced him- 
to proceed as far as St Helena. During his stay in that island, he, ever. 
attentive to the interests of science, improved the opportunity by de- - 
scribing most of the plants he found growing there. After his arrival - 
in England, whither he was at length obliged to proceed, he entertained - 
considerable hopes of being able to put the Flora Indica to the press; 
and once wrote to.the editor (Dr Carey of Serampore) that, in preparin 
it for this purpose, he hoped to procure the assistance of one of the 
heart." * : 
© Previous to leaving India, several manuscript copies vof the Flora | 
diea had been made; besides others, one was sent to England to. the | 
East India Company, and another was left in the possession of Dr Ca- — 
. vey: from these having been written by natives who did not. understand = 
` ihe language, not a few various readings have crept in, so that in seve- B 
__* Carey's preface to his and Wallich’s edition of the Flora Indica. 
+ 
