xx Introduction. 



way as the term Fauna with regard to the animal kingdom. 

 It is common to speak of the Flora of a country or district, 

 and a work devoted to the botany of a country or district is 

 often entitled a Flora of that region." Chambers' Eneyclo- 

 pcedia. 



The following extract from Mr. Bentham's writings, repro- 

 duced by Sir Joseph Hooker at the beginning of the Indian 

 Flora, gives the principles which have been kept in view in 

 the purely botanical part of this book. 



" The principal object of a Flora of a country is to afford 

 the means of determining (i.e. ascertaining the name of) any 

 plant growing in it .... With this view a Flora consists 

 of descriptions of all the wild or native plants contained in 

 the country in question, so drawn up and arranged that the 

 student may identify any individual specimen which he may 

 gather. 



" These descriptions should be clear, concise, accurate, and 

 characteristic, so that each one should be readily adapted to 

 the plant it relates to, and to no other : they should be, as 

 nearly as possible, arranged under natural divisions, so as to 

 facilitate the comparison of each plant with those most nearly 

 allied to it ; and they should be accompanied by an artificial 

 key or index, by means of which the student may be guided 

 with the least delay to the individual description belonging to 

 the plant under examination. 



" Descriptions should be expressed as much as possible in 

 ordinary well-established language. But for the purpose of 

 accuracy, it is necessary not only to give a more precise technical 

 meaning to many words used more or less commonly and 

 vaguely, but also to introduce purely technical names for such 

 parts or forms of plants as are of little importance except to 

 the botanist. 



"At the same time, mathematical accuracy must not be 

 expected. Names cannot be invented for all the infinite 

 forms and appearances assumed by plants and their parts. 

 The same term is not only differently applied by different 

 botanists, but the same writer sometimes gives somewhat 

 different meanings to the same word. The botanist's en- 

 deavours should always be, on the one hand to make as near 

 an approach to precision as possible, and on the other hand to 

 avoid that prolixity of detail and overloading with technical 

 terms which tends rather to confusion than clearness." 



