BOTANY. 



Haifa century ago, Dr. Buchanan, who accompanied 

 Symes in his embassy to Ava, made a large collection of 

 plants from the banks of the Irrawaddy. A dozen years 

 afterwards, Felix Carey, an English missionary, collected 

 many curious and new plants indigenous in Burmah, and 

 sent them up to Roxburgh at the Botanical Garden near 

 Calcutta, who described them in his " Flora Indica." 

 After the Burmese war, Dr. Wallich visited this Coast 

 and went with Crawfurd in his embassy to Ava ; and his 

 catalogue of plants collected on this visit contains 1650 

 species. Eight or ten years subsequent to Dr. Wallich's 

 visit, Dr. Griffith came to the Coast, and during a residence 

 of fourteen months collected specimens of 1700 species of 

 plants, growing in these Provinces. 



It is not probable then, that many conspicuous plants 

 have escaped the notice of these indefatigable botanists ; 

 and yet, nothing was known of the pice until it was de- 

 scribed in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, less than two 

 years ago ; and no work to which I can refer, mentions 

 that very elegant flowering shrub, the nodding cleroden- 

 dron in our indigenous flora, nor the large pink-flowered 

 knotty cassia, nor the splendid orange-flowered buteas, 

 nor the white-flowered drooping barringtonia with its 

 spikes a yard long, nor the fragrant recurved tabernce- 

 montana, nor the curious gloriosa, nor the large blue-flow- 

 ered thunbergia. 



Our plants however, are better known than their pro* 

 perties. Wallich collected specimens of a species of blu- 

 mia from Tavoy, and De Candolle described the species 

 as B. grandis, but neither of them were aware that the 

 weed produced an abundance of camphor, not inferior to 

 the best camphor of the shops. Dr. Wight described 



