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I have derived valuable help from a most splendid set of the Calami 
and Daemonorops cultivated in the Botanic Garden at Buitenzorg, beautifully 
represented by extraordinarily large and complete specimens. For this collection I 
am indebted to Dr. Melchior Treub, the eminent Director of that great 
establishment: to him and to his assistants I wish gratefully to express my 
warm thanks. 
It gives me much pleasure also to acknowledge the kind help of many 
friends who have most generously supplied me with invaluable specimens from 
their collections. Thus I have to thank my late friend Baron Ferdinand von 
Mueller for many Australian and Papuan Palms; Mr. Louis Pierre, of whose 
monumental Forest Flora of Cochin China the botanical world greatly regrets 
the discontinuance, for many  Indo-Chinese specimens; Sir D. Brandis, Mr. C. 
B. Olarke and Mr. J. Sykes Gamble, for Palms from various parts of India; 
my late dear friend Signor Leonardo Fea, for Palms from Central Burma; the 
late Dr. K. Schumann for some from New Guinea; Dr. Schweinfurth for the 
few species growing in the Niam-Niam country in Central Africa; Mr. Gustav 
Mann, formerly Conservator of Forests in Assam, for an almost complete 
collection of the Palms of the various districts of that Province; and Mr. E. 
H. Man, for an equally important collection from the Andamans and Nicobars, 
of whose Civil Commission he was for so many years a member. 
In conclusion, it may be remarked that from the commencement of my 
own explorations I gave special attention to the collection of Palms. The 
material brought together by myself to represent these Princes of the Vegetable 
Kingdom is, therefore, as regards the tropical Asiatic Archipelagos, probably more 
important than that existing in any other Museum. ‘This material is now the 
property of the “Istituto di Studi Superiori" of Florence; and I feel certain 
that the authorities who superintend it must be very pleased to see an 
important part of their collection now magnificently illustrated through the 
enlightened munificence of the Government of Bengal. 
O. BECCARI, 
FronENcE, 1905. 
