THE CHIEF TIMBER-TREES OF INDIA. pe oe i 
XV. The Chief Timber-Trees of India. 
By the Hon. Epiror. 
In such a vast country as India, extending over about 4o” of 
longitude and 20° of latitude north of the equatorial line, there 
is of course a great variety of climate, and consequently also of 
botanical regions, each characterised by its own peculiar flora. 
There are vast tracts, larger than some of the countries in 
Europe, which have an arid and in some years almost a rainless 
climate, as in Sind, Rajputana, and portions of Central India 
and the Punjab; while towards the extreme east the notorious 
Cherraptingyi, situated in a bend of the mountains which catches 
the moisture-laden southern monsoon winds and cools them 
down, has the largest known rainfall in the whole world, an 
average of 640 inches, or 534 feet a year. And when to this 
enormous variation between the extremes of drought and 
of moisture are added not only equal, but also even greater 
variations and extremes of heat and cold, ranging from the eternal 
snows of the great Himalaya Mountains to a temperature often 
about 115° to 120° in the shade during the hottest time of the 
year, it can easily be understood that tropical, subtropical, 
and alpine India offers, as Sir Joseph Hooker remarks in the 
Introduction to his Alora of British India, perhaps the richest, 
and certainly the most varied botanical area on the surface of 
the globe. And elsewhere he estimates that the Indian flora 
includes about 15,000 different species of plants. 
As might of course be expected with such a general wealth of 
flora, the typically forestal vegetation likewise shows great 
variations, and occurs in vast abundance in most parts of the 
country which are not thickly populated. There has as yet 
been no general botanical survey of the trees, shrubs, and 
woody climbers which are to be found in the forests and jungles ; 
but, in the Introduction to the second edition of his A/anual of 
Indian Timbers, Mr Gamble estimated that there are about 4749 
known species actually indigenous to India, including 2513 trees, 
1429 shrubs, and 807 woody climbers. It may, perhaps, give some 
idea of this enormous botanical wealth and variety, when it is 
stated that there are only 134 species of woody plants in the British 
Isles, so that the Indian forest flora is at least 354 times as rich 
and varied,—and probably much more so, because many of the 
