vi Introductory. 



To a less extent this applies also to each species. My 

 descriptions have been made wholly from Ceylon specimens, 

 and will thus often be not comprehensive enough to cover 

 the range of form exhibited in other countries. I have, 

 indeed, throughout this Flora endeavoured to restrict all 

 the information given under each species to it as a Ceylon 

 plant only, excluding, as a rule, everything referring only to 

 Peninsular India, Malaya, or other regions beyond our limit. 



PLAN OF THIS HANDBOOK. 



The sequence of the Natural Orders and Genera is that 

 followed in all recent English systematic Floras, viz., that 

 of Bentham and Hooker's ' Genera Plantarum.' For the 

 species I have kept mainly to the ' Flora of British India/ 

 with which important work it is highly desirable that this 

 Flora should be in general accordance. When any devia- 

 tion occurs from these standard books, attention is always 

 drawn to it. 



After a diagnostic description of each Order there follows 

 a brief Key for the rapid determination of its Genera ; and 

 a fuller description of each Genus is afterwards given with a 

 similar Key to its species. Each species is treated in 

 paragraphs on the following plan : — 



I. The Botanical Name "^ (in Clarendon type) immediately 

 followed (in Italic type) by a reference to the authority 

 by whom that name was first published, with the date. 



No botanical name in the modern taxonomic sense can be of earlier 

 date than 1753, when Linnaeus first definitely published his binominal 

 nomenclature.t 



The Vernacular Names when known (also in Clarendon 



* When of any local interest, the derivation of the generic and specific 

 names is given in a foot-note. 



t I may mention here at once that, for the sake of convenience of 

 reference, I have uniformly written the adjective indicating nativity to 

 Ceylon zeyla7iicus-a-u)n^ disregarding the various other modes followed 

 by authors, e.g., ceylanicus, zeylontcus, Sec. 



