INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 53 



Moon's catalogue of the olants of Cevlon is also a bare 



of names. Many- 



make use of them. Fortunately, 



however, this is of little consequence, as Ave have no lack of 



but 



om Ceylon. Moon's collections were excellent; 



Voigt's ' Hortus Suburbanus 



Calcutta in 1845, is, for the same reason, not available as a 

 work of reference, nor can we refrain from expressing our re- 

 gret that talents of so high an order should have been devoted 



to a work of so little practical use. 



in 



in 



Dr. Lindley's invaluable ' Genera t 

 Plants ' contains descriptions of all t 

 lected by Wallich and his predecesso 

 parts of the ' Folia Orchidacea' (now 

 we have a complete account of many of the genera, drawn 

 up after a most laborious and critical examination of all the 

 materials accessible up to the latest day. Our own collections 

 are being thus published, and we consider ourselves highly 

 fortunate in their falling into such able hands*. Dr. Lindley 

 has further rendered essential service to Indian botany by nu- 

 merous descriptions and figures of Indian plants that have 



in 



He 



defatigably in the distribution of the great Wallichian Her- 

 barium ; his elementary books on botany, and his great work, 

 the ' Vegetable Kingdom,' are indispensable both to botanical 

 students and to proficients ; whilst, by the scientific direction 

 he has given to the study and practice of horticulture, as an 

 author and as secretary of the Horticultural Society of Lon- 

 don, he has been the means of rendering English botanists 

 familiar with the plants of India in a living state, to an ex- 

 tent that would have been thought visionary a few years ago. 



* The analysis of plants of this Order, in a dried state, is a work of the ut- 

 most difficulty, and we would urge upon botanic in India the necessit of 

 drawing and describing the fresh specimen*, and of prescrwng the flowers (aa of 

 all plants whose parts are injured 1 the operation of proving and drying) in 

 spirits or a< . I. 



