INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 11 



The rashness of some botanists is productive of still more 

 detrimental effects to the science in the case of species ; for 

 though a beginner may pause before venturing to institute a 

 genus, it rarely enters into his head to hesitate before pro- 

 posing a new species. Hence the difficulty of determining 

 synonymy is now the greatest obstacle to the progress of 

 systematic botany; and this incubus unfortunately increases 

 from day to day, threatening at no very distant period so 

 to encumber the science, that a violent effort will be ne- 

 cessary on the part of those who have its interests at heart, 

 to relieve it of a load which materially retards its advance- 

 ment. The number of species described is now so very great, 

 and the descriptions are scattered through such a multitude 

 of books, that even after long research it is difficult to avoid 

 overlooking much that is already known ; and when botanists 

 with limited libraries and herbaria institute new species, it is 

 almost certain that the latter will be found to have been 

 already characterized. To such an extent is this carried, that 

 we could indicate several works, in which one half and even 

 more of the species are proposed in ignorance of the labours 

 of other botanists. Indian Botany unfortunately, far from 

 forming an honourable exception in this particular, presents 

 a perfect chaos of new names for well-known plants, and inac- 

 curate or incomplete descriptions of new ones. 



It must be remembered too that the Linnean canon, by 

 which twelve words were allowed for a specific character, is 

 now becoming quite inadequate to the requirements of the 

 science ; and that the brief descriptions, which are now so ge- 

 nerally substituted for definitions, unless prepared with the 

 greatest skill, as well as care, and after an inspection of very 

 numerous specimens, seldom express accurately the essential 

 characters of a plant. It is indeed becoming more and more 

 evident, that in the great majority of instances no definition 

 is sufficient to enable inexperienced botanists to determine 



important principle in view, and to impress it upon others; he lias, however, 

 failed to check the prevalent tendency to the multiplication of genera. 



