618 SOME OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF ECONOMIC BOTANY. 
very safe limits in taking the number of existing species to be some- 
what above 110,000.* 
Now if we should make a comprehensive list of all the flowering plants 
which are cultivated on what we may eall a fairly large scale at the 
present day, placing therein all foodt and forage plants, all those which 
are grown for timber and cabinet woods, for fibers and cordage, for 
tanning materials, dyes, resins, rubber, gums, oils, perfumes, and medi- 
cines, we could bring together barely 300 species. If we should add 
to this short catalogue all the species which without cultivation 
can be used by man, we should find it considerably lengthened. A 
great many products of the classes just referred to are derived in 
commerce from wild plants, but exactly how much their addition would 
extend the list it is impossible, in the present state of knowledge, to 
determine. Every enumeration of this character is likely to contain 
errors from two sources: First, it would be sure to contain some 
species which have outlived their real usefulness; and, secondly, owing 
to the chaotie condition of the literature of the subject, omissions would 
occur, 
But, after all proper exclusions and additions have been made, the 
total number of species of flowering plants utilized to any considerable 
extent by man in his civilized state does not exceed, in fact it does not 
quite reach, 1 per cent. 
in more than one category. He has also arranged the plants according to the coun- 
tries naturally producing them. 
Tseful Native Plants of Australia (including Tasmania). By J. H. Maiden, F.L.S., 
Curator of the Technological Museum of New South Wales, Sydney. Sydney, 1889. 
See also note 19. 
Handbook of Commercial Geography. By George G. Chisholm, M. A., B.Sc. Lon- 
don, 1889. 
-New Commercial Plants, with directions how to grow them to the best advantage. 
By Thomas Christy. London, Christy & Co. 
Dictionary of popular names of the plants which furnish the natural and acquired 
wants of man. By John Smith, A. L.S. London, 1882. 
Cultivated Plants. Their propagation and improvement. By F. W. Burbage. 
London, 1877. ; 
The Wanderings of Plants and animals from their first home. by Victor Hehn, 
edited by James Steven Stallybrass. London, 1885. 
Rescarches into the Early History of Mankind and the development of civilization. 
By Edward B. Tylor, D.C.L., ..D., F.R.S. 1878. 
“The number of species of Phewnogamia has been given by many writers as not 
far from 150,000. But the total number of species recognized by Bentham and 
Hooker in the Genera Plantarum (Durand’s Index) is 100,220, in 210 Natural Orders 
and 8,417 genera. 
tDr, E. Lewis Sturtevant, to whose kindness I am indebted for great assistance in 
the matter of references, has placed at my disposal many of his notes on edible plants, 
etc. From his enumeration it appears that if we count all the plants which have 
been cultivated for food at one time or another, the list contains 1,192 species, but if 
we count all the plants which ‘either habitually or during famine periods are re- 
corded to have been eaten,” we obtain a list of no less than 4,690 species, or about 34 
per cent of all known species of plants. But, as Sir Joseph Hooker has said, the 
products of many plants though eatable, are not fit to eat. 
