LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. IxXV 



Monocotyledons and Apetalae. The south-eastern peninsula of 

 Europe, comprising Greece and Turkey, has still less means of 

 publishing indigenous Floras. The Austrian portion alone has 

 been well investigated and illustrated by Visiani's excellent Flora 

 Dalmatica; what we know of the remainder has been due to the 

 works of British, German, or French botanists, none of which are 

 sufficiently recent or comprehensive to be here mentioned. The 

 flora of the Levant, which, although technically a part of Asia, is in 

 its natural productions so closely connected with southern Europe, 

 and so particularly interesting as the comitry from which or through 

 which so many early cultivated plants had proceeded, had, since the 

 days of Toumefort, been httle investigated until taken in hand 

 by Boissier, who is preparing a general Flora Orientalis, in 

 which it is hoped he will condense, and in some instances re- 

 form, the very numerous species described by himself and others. 

 In the meantime, M. de TchihatchefF has pubhshed a very useful 

 general summary under the title of Elemens d'lme Flore de I'Asie 

 Mineure. 



Beyond the limits of Europe, I may first refer to our own Colonies. 

 A general summary of the steps taken to procure a unifonn set of 

 these floras was inserted, by Dr. Hooker, in the Natural History 

 Review for July last, and I have only now to report progress. 

 The fifth part, recently issued, of Grisebach's Flora of the British 

 West India Islands has brought it down to the commencement of 

 Monocotyledons ; the fourth part of Thwaites's Enumeration of 

 Ceylon Plants goes far into Monocotyledons ; and each of these com- 

 pact but comprehensive works wUl, it is hoped, be very shortly 

 completed by the issue of one more part. The printing of the second 

 volume of Harvey and Sender's Flora Capensis, comprising Legu- 

 minosae and Calyciflorae, is nearly finished. Our Indian botanists 

 have been active, as evidenced by the Prsecursores Florae Indicse 

 of Drs. Hooker and Thomson, the Flora Adenensis of Dr. T. Ander- 

 son, Mr. Edge worth's Account of Punjab Plants, and other papers 

 commiinicated to our Society ; and although, some years since, an 

 excellent opportunity for giving to the world a reaUy good Flora of 

 that rich and varied territory — more wanted, for a variety of pur- 

 poses, than any other botanical work — was lost by an LU-advised 

 want of liberahty on the part of the then East India Company, I 

 have now strong hopes that the present Indian Government will at 

 length make such arrangement as wiU enable Dr. Hooker to lay be- 

 fore the scientific and industrial public, in the shape of a compen- 

 dious Flora Indica, the results of his own important labours and 



