president's address. 763 



Indo-Chinese Area,* the present paper attempts to divide into a 

 convenient number (11) of Subsubareas for botanical reference." 

 He has tabulated the Indian Cyperacece on this framework and 

 says, " Only by a somewhat full trial can the convenience of a 

 scheme of subsubareas be tested; moreover, it affords an oppor- 

 tunity for the suggestion of improvements in the scheme of sub- 

 subareas proposed." It is observed that the divisions are only 

 tentative, as indeed they must be more or less, until tested by 

 practical use. The employment of a definite group of plants (a 

 Natural Order) to test the utility of the divisions, seems novel, 

 and the precedent should be followed in New South Wales. The 

 term "subsubarea" of Clarke appears to correspond to Flahault's 

 *'domaine" rather than to his "secteur," and affords another 

 instance of the desirability of uniform nomenclature. Neverthe- 

 less, if botanists divide the different counties with which they are 

 familiar into botanical areas as their local knowledge or predilec- 

 tion dictates, the mere fact of their working on definite lines, no 

 matter how they differ in details, will result in the accumulation 

 of valuable facts which will be capable of utilisation in the grand 

 scheme of international classification of botanical areas which is 

 foreshadowed in the early future. 



" Could we but know^ the actual curving boundaries of a few 

 Tiundreds of our best-detined species, what a wealth of new 

 o-eneralizations could be drawn from them, and how much new 

 information they would yield concerning the factors Avhich govern 

 distribution in general ! 



"For, irregular as these lines would be, I can but think that 

 they would in many cases stand in definite relation to lines of 

 other kinds, to isothermals, to altitudinal contours, to degrees of 

 humidity, to the boundaries of geolqgical formations, the limits 

 of glaciation, the ranges of animals, especially pollen-bearing 

 insects, to the paths of bird-migration, and finally to the course 

 of human traffic, "t 



* Phil. Trans. Vol. 183. B (1892), p. 371. 

 t Dr. B. L. Robinson's Presidential Address to the Botanical Society of 

 America. " Science,'' Vol. xiv. No. 352 (1901). 



