INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 85 



within the British boundaries, besides many others which, 

 from being in a different state, or belonging to different va- 



rieties of others found elsewhere, are essential for the elucida- 

 tion of our Flora. For the same reasons we include the Chi- 

 nese Tibetan district of Guge, immediately north of Kumaon, 

 which has been examined by Captain R. Strachey and Mr. 

 Winterbottom, and whose Flora is identical with that of the 

 British Tibetan valleys of Piti, and of Niti (in Kumaon) . 



Nipal and Bhotan again are wholly independent states; 

 but to exclude them would be to omit all notice of the 

 splendid labours of Wallich on the one hand (which reflect so 

 much lustre on the liberality of a former Government of 

 India), and of Griffith on the other, who alone has explored 

 Bhotan. Sikkim occupies an intermediate position between 

 Nipal and Bhotan ; a considerable part of it belongs to the 

 British, the rest is maintained by our influence and autho- 

 rity; and the whole presents a flora which is not only the 

 best investigated of any district east of Kumaon, but unites 

 the Floras of Nipal, Bhotan, East Tibet, and the Khasia 

 mountains; being hence, in a geographico-botanical point of 

 view, one of the most important provinces in India, if not in 

 all Asia. 



Returning to the extreme west, the political boundary of 

 British India lies at no great distance beyond the Indus, but 

 does not include the mountainous regions of Afghanistan, the 

 whole of which was investigated about fifteen years ago by 

 Griffith, who accompanied the army of the Indus on its march 



from Sind to fJandahar and Cabnl. and nenetrated as far as 



Barman and Saighan, forming very large 

 besides containing an immense number 

 ropean plants, which find their eastern limits 



These 



territory 



forms which advance 



no further west, and, what is of still greater importance, tin -y 

 ontain many species common both to Europe and the Hima- 

 laya, but Which, from presenting differences induced by local 



causes in tin two distant countries, might not be imagined t 



