PREFACE. xix 
specimen and name (although unfortunately often without the precise 
locality) was for the most part retained, when there were duplicates, so 
that in most instances we have been enabled to identify our plant with 
that mentioned in Dr Wallich’s List. At that time Dr Wight had the 
charge of the botanical establishment at Madras, and was on the eve of 
departure on a very extensive tour, calculated to occupy him nearly two 
years, in which he intended to visit all the richest botanic districts in the 
south of India, including the Malabar coast. But this, the only esta- 
blishment in the Madras Presidency, was dissolved; the expedition was 
thus stopped, and Dr Wight removed to Negapatam, in the neighbour- 
bood of which the principal collections were made, which he has had in 
his power to distribute since his arrival in England. His collectors, 
however, in other parts have proved diligent, so that plants from con- 
siderable distances, as Courtallum and Dindygul, have also accumulated 
on our hands. Besides, a valuable collection of Klein’s and Rottler’s 
plants was procured by purchase a short time before he left India; and 
these specimens being named, have afforded us much assistance in clear- 
ing up many doubtful synonyms in Willdenow, Roth, De Candolle, and 
other authors. 
Almost all our new species are from the mountainous distriets ; but, 
notwithstanding, we are satisfied that our knowledge of them is yet very 
limited ; so limited, that when the Neelgherries and Dindygul mountains 
are properly explored, it is probable that a third or even more will be 
added to the catalogue of Peninsular plants. 
We are quite confident, on the other hand, that few or almost no 
novelties occur along the eastern coast; the hawk eyes of the mission- 
aries appear to have passed nothing there: yet every day we see plants 
described as new species from these well explored parts. To remedy 
this evil has been the most invidious and perhaps most difficult part of - oe 
our task ; so different were often the descriptions given, and the genera 
in which the plants were put, that it often required a stretch of imagina- 
tion, and the seizing of some single remarkable point of structure, to 
bring them together for comparison. When we had full descriptions — 
-before us, as in Lamarck's Encyclopedie Methodique, we have felt more — 
at home : in such cases we have not unfrequently found it advantageous —— — - 
to picture the plant in the mind's eye from the description, and have — 
been sometimes fortunate, in consequence, in discovering its true affinity ; 
but having done this, before we could get it to quadrate exaetly with 
. any of our own, we have been sometimes obliged to discard. part of the 
description as erroneous, or taken from some other species. Our mo- 
tives for this have principally arisen from the firm convietion that almost 
. all the plants described by Willdenow, Lamarck, Vahl, Roth, and others, 
.. from the Peninsula (or East India as it was usually termed by these ho- 
