I T 8 Journal of Travel a?id Natural History 



FLORA ORIENTALISE 



'T^HIS is a work which has been expected from its author for 

 -*- many years, and which, now that it has made its appear- 

 ance, will be everywhere welcomed with satisfaction. It was in 

 the East that Botany first took its rise as a science. When at the 

 commencement of the eighteenth century it awoke into new life — 

 Tournefort, Sherard, Buxbaum, Hasselquist, and Forskahl traversed 

 Greece, Asia Minor, and Palestine, and obtained that knowledge 

 of their vegetation which we find marshalled in the writings of 

 Linnaeus and his cotemporary disciples. But though from genera- 

 tion to generation explorers have not been wanting, post-Linnaean 

 Floras for parts of the East are few and far between. The materials 

 for the magnificent " Flora Graeca" {a work originated and carried 

 out in this country), of which the drawings were executed by Bauer, 

 and the descriptions principally by Sir J. E. Smith, were amassed 

 by Sibthorp between 1786 and 1795 ; and Delile's " Botanique de 

 I'Expedition de 1' Egypte" carries us back to the beginning of the 

 century. The only recent Floras which contain descriptions are those 

 of the Russian provinces included in the general " Flora Rossica" 

 of Ledebour, and the Spicilegium Florae Rumeliae of Grisebach, 

 neither of them for tracts which fall within the bounds of the East 

 as the term is usually applied. During the last twenty years 

 especially, many of the European residents in the East, some of our 

 own consuls noteworthy amongst them, have collected plants, and 

 numerous expeditions have been undertaken for the purpose of 

 gathering specimens for distribution upon an extensive scale. 

 There is a large stock of Oriental plants in all the principal herbaria; 

 but no general Flora, and, as we have said, very few local ones have 

 been undertaken. We are helped, it is true, to some extent by 

 such works as Tchihatchefif's " Asia Minor," and Kotschy and 

 Unger's " Die Insul Cypern," both of which contain full catalogues 

 for the tracts to which they relate, with the descriptions of novel- 

 ties. Two extensive works have been devoted entirely to the 



* Flora Orientalis sive enumeratio Plantarum in Oricnte a Graecia et 

 Egypto ad Indiie fines hucusque observatamm — Auctore E. Boissier. Vol. i. 

 Thalamiflonv. Geneva : H. Georg. 



