xlii PKOCEEDIKGS OF THE 



merous ; there is no comparison with the members of adjoining 

 floras ; nor can I discover any clue to the principle upon which he 

 has included in this Flora of Dutch India a selection of Nilgherry, 

 Nepalese, and Chinese plants. N^o reliable statistics can therefore 

 be derived from the work. Nor did Miquel himself enter much in any 

 of his works on the question of the general distribution of plants 

 over the archipelago. This is the more to be regretted as he showed 

 that he was well able to cope with the subject in his excellent 

 review of the flora of Sumatra as compared with its physical condi- 

 tions and with that of the neighbouring island of Java, forming the 

 Introduction to his supplemental volume of the above-mentioned 

 ' Flora.' Since his lamented death, I have seen no signs of any Dutch 

 successor likely to take up the study of the botany of the archipelago 

 in any scientific point of view. In the mean time the rich stores col- 

 lected by P. Beecari in Sarawak are, I am informed, in the course 

 of distribution ; and that enterprising Italian naturalist has returned 

 to the East with a view to the exploration of New Guinea and some 

 others of the less-known islands. 



Grisebach, in his Indian Monsoon region, unites the archipelago 

 with the East-Indian peninsulas and continent to the foot of the 

 Himalayas, the island of Ceylon to the west, and the Society and 

 the Marquesas and other coral islands to the east, embracing, as it 

 were, the whole of Tropical Asia, or Sclater's Indian, with a portion 

 of his Australian Palseotropical regions ; and certainly a cursory 

 survey of the vegetation of this vast expanse of territory would 

 appear to justify Grisebach's idea of its unity of character. It has 

 also tolerably definite limits, determined on the north-west by the 

 drier rocky East Mediterranean or Persian region, on the north by 

 the great Himalayan chain, and on the east and south by a wide 

 extent of ocean — the exceptions being chiefly the above-mentioned 

 inoculation, as it were, into the Japanese flora to the north-east, 

 and more or less of an intrusion across the ocean to the westward 

 into Tropical Africa, and over a narrower interval of sea to the 

 south-east into north-east Australia. The principal cause of this 

 uniformity of character, so far as it goes, is well deduced by 

 Grisebach from climatological and physical conditions, his observa- 

 tions on the chief portion of the region, or East India proper, from 

 Ceylon and the Peninsula to Malacca, being mainly derived from 

 Hooker and Thomson's most instructive Introduction to their ' Flora 

 Indica,' which, from a variety of causes, was unfortunately put a 

 stop to after the issue of ihe first volume. It is now being re- 

 placed by the ' Flora of British India,' under Dr. Hooker's editor- 



