THE SILVICULTURE OF INDIAN TREES. 1 77 



populnea is omitted, and a good many other species. But it 

 is even more serious when it has to be added that while all 

 through the text cross-references occur, these are entirely 

 ignored in the Index. As a perhaps unimportant example, but 

 one fully illustrative, I may give Acanthus ilictfolius. It has 

 three lines devoted to it on page 693 and these have been 

 indexed, but the plant is alluded to in several passages (as 

 for example, pp. 496, 498, and 499), and useful additional 

 information is there afforded which is lost to the reader because 

 not indexed. 



The author uses many technical terms which, I fear, may 

 be unintelligible to readers not familiar with Schimper's Plant 

 Geography and other such works. It would have been a great 

 help had a glossary of terms been furnished, or, at all events, 

 references made in the Index to passages (mostly in the 

 Introduction) where these are explained or exemplified. 



Professor Troup, on page 156, describes Hibiscus tiliaceus, the 

 bhola in the vernacular, as "a climber growing to a height 

 of about 10 feet and forming dense matted thickets." That 

 plant, in the Flora of British Jndia, is said to be a much- 

 branched tree ; and Sir Dietrich Brandis, in his Indian Trees, 

 after describing the plant as a small, much-branched tree, 

 gives, in his Addenda, the further information that it grows 

 to the size of a tree in the Andamans, but adds, " and as 

 a rampant climber in the dense forests of the Sundribans." 

 That is certainly a most remarkable fact for, so far as I 

 am aware, no other malvaceous plant has been described as 

 a climber. It would, therefore, have been most interesting had 

 special attention been given to this subject, in order to see 

 if there could be any possible mistake in determination, and 

 if not to endeavour to discover (as a silvicultural problem) 

 the solution of this novel development. It certainly is very 

 remarkable that a plant that grows to a tree in one locality 

 should become a climber in another. The interest in the 

 Sundriban climber, however, may be said to lie in a direction 

 apparently not approached as yet by Professor Troup, namely, 

 the investigation of the varieties, races, and hybrids of the 

 trees of India that can be looked at as being direct adaptations 

 to local environment or to human demands. The Professor's 

 reasonings and examples of succession are certainly highly 

 fascinating, but that there are direct adaptations to environment 



VOL. XXXV. PART II. M 



