PREFACE. 
Durine the. two years I was officiating as Superintendent of the Caleutta Botanic Garden, I meditated publishing some extensive Illustrations 
of the Bengal Flora. Few of the species have hitherto been depicted and these few plates are seattered in many books. When I was relieved from the charge 
of the Calcutta Botanie Garden in June 1871, the complete set of drawings representing every Bengal species of the small orders Commelynacece and Cyrtan- 
dracee was nearly ready. I now publish them as a fragment. The lithographic plates have been prepared while I have been travelling in East Bengal in a 
boat. This has only been rendered possible by the kindness and botanic ability of my friend Mr. H. H. Locke who has managed the lithography entirely for 
me in Calcutta. The letter-press has been finally revised by me away fromthe Caleutta Herbarium and without the advantage of comparing the specimens 
there and of consulting the Library and is not quite what I intended it should have been. ‘The original drawings of the plants were made partly by the artists 
pad by Government at the Botanic Garden and are therefore Government property. I have to thank Dr. George King, the Superintendent of the Caleutta 
Botanic Garden, for his liberality and kindness in permitting me the fullest use of them. 
The present monographs were designed to be useful to persons who have not the opportunity of referring toa large Botanical Library, and to be 
ulready 
complete in themselves so far as the Bengal plants are concerned. I have therefore often copied (with acknowledgment) plates of plants of these orde 
uttered through various e botanical works. But in such eases I have compared very carefully the plate copied with the plant, and have often 
published, but s 
made additions or corrections to the plate as in Cschynanthus Peelii, Tab. XLIV. Ihave generally made use of published plates in this way because I thus 
have obtained a better representation of the plant than my Calcutta artist could make. But where the plate already published shews an unusual state of the 
species, I have preferred to put out a new picture, artistically inferior : as in Chirita macrophylla Tab. LXXI. 
The drawings have where possible been made from living plants but are mostly taken from herbarium specimens. In such cases in general I have 
been able to supervise the drawing by the light of my own acquaintance with the living plant. Though the result is not quite satisfactory, the question practi- 
cally lies between such pictures or none. The Cyrtandracee of the damp valleys of Sikkim cannot be cultivated at Calcutta, and there are great difficulties in 
inducing a Bengali artist to visit their native habitat. 
Tt will be seen that the drawings for these plates were not made by men of much artistic power, though Mr. Locke has corrected the grosser errors 
and they are as to the promi- 
in the process of lithographing them. But they are made by men who measure every leaf and peduncle with a pair of compass: 
nent characters most faithful. The artists knowing nothing of botany have often made errors in the minuter but essential botanie points, and these are men- 
tioned (I hope always) in the text describing the plate. It will be understood that when the text and the plate do not well agree, the text is always the superior 
authority. The dissections and magnified drawings are generally my own work, and are I trust tolerably correct, but I am totally uninstructed in drawing. 
The monographs are intended to include every species and marked variety of plants in the two orders Commelynaceee and Cyrtandracee growing 
wild in Bengal. A large proportion of these are known to me wild. But there are materials in the Caleutta Herbarium sufficient to prove that there remain 
several more distinct species to be added hereafter. Ihave taken up species from dried specimens only where the material is full and satisfactory, and have 
thought it better to pass by species than to put them cut with imperfect characters, There are added one or two new species from Burmah and South India. 
T hope that few of the new species described will ever be reduced to varieties ; but I have admitted several species, which I would rather class as 
varieties, out of deference to Wallich, Hasskarl, and others. 
The distribution of the several plants in Bengal and in India is given so far only as specimens actually in my hands demonstrate it; the range of 
many of the species is doubtless much wider than the limits which I have been able to indicate. 
The allegations are generally stated absolutely ; this is done for the sake of brevity : and with each must be understood the qualification “in my 
“ opinion, and so far as I have as yet seen.” 
