1 20 Journal of Travel atid Natural History 



tude ; a region which measures some 3000 miles from east to west, 

 and 2000 from north to south, and includes, on a rough estimate, 

 an area of between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 square miles of land, 

 and about a twelfth part of the surface of the globe. Taking the 

 most productive portions of this tract and comparing them with 

 our own country, the number of plants they yield within a given 

 area is very much greater. Palestine, which is not far different in 

 area to Wales, probably yields three times as many species ; and 

 the same will hold true of Asia Minor and Greece ; but from this 

 proportion there is a gradual decline in those tracts where the 

 range of altitude and situation is smaller, and there is a wide ex- 

 tent of surface included within the 4,000,000 miles of an entirely 

 desert character. The districts included in the area which are best 

 known botanically, are Greece, Roumelia, Egypt, the Russian pro- 

 vinces, and certain parts of Asia Minor, especially Armenia. M. 

 Boissier gives a detailed account of the explorers of all the different 

 tracts, and of the scattered writings that relate to them ; and this in 

 itself is a valuable document. Even for a country that has been 

 so much visited as Palestine, we believe that such a Flora as it 

 would be possible to compile from the books and herbaria in Lon- 

 don would not include more than two-thirds of the plants that are 

 to be found there ; so there is an ample margin left in which the 

 botanists of the Palestine Exploration Committee may work. Of 

 Arabia and Persia, of course, our knowledge is much less than of 

 Palestine. Tartary we know only through an excursion of Dr 

 Lehmann, who penetrated from the north to Bokhara and Samar- 

 cand, and gathered about 1500 species, which were published by 

 Professor Bunge of Dorpat. Affghanistan we know only through 

 the researches of Dr Griffith, who accompanied the English expe- 

 dition in 1839, and collected about 1000 species, the first set of 

 which is at Kew ; and Beloochistan only through two excursions 

 which Dr Stocks made from Scinde, at great risk, in 1850 and 

 1851. 



This first instalment of the work carries us down through the 

 Thalamifloroe : at this rate we shall need at least four more volumes 

 of equal size to complete the Phanerogamia. Just as in the Euro- 

 pean Flora, more than half the species belong to three large orders ; 

 but, whilst in Europe Ranunculaceaj, CaryophyllaccK, and Cruci- 

 ferae bear to one another a proportion of about 3, 5, and 6, in the 

 East Caryophyllaceae increase and Cruciferce fiill, and the propor- 

 tion becomes about 3, 8, and 5. Of the other orders, omitting the 



