388 FINAL BOTANICAL WOKK 



Every collector seems to have got uniques, and the want 

 of better specimens of many fairly well-known species is 

 lamentable. 



I am now writing up detailed descriptions of the E. 

 Nepal and Sikkim species, and still find errors of identifica- 

 tion in my last review of them ; and Fl. B. Ind. is past 

 praying for in the matter of errors in detail, from bad 

 identifications, bad specimens and bad examination. I 

 feel as if I were now only beginning to realise the difficulty 

 of my undertaking such a genus at all. 



My great object is now to put the species into shape for 

 the use of Botanists in India who would take up the genus ; 

 for as to naming ordinary herbarium specimens by descrip- 

 tions it is almost impossible ; for this good drawings are 

 indispensable, and some species would take two or three 

 plates to give an idea of its variations. 



This pause in the work on the Balsams until the new collec- 

 tions arrived was busily filled up from the summer of 1 901 by 



an article on the Flora of India that I am preparing at the 

 request of the Governor of India for the new edition of the 

 Imperial Gazetteer. I am restricted to some 20 pages 

 and am cogitating the dealing with the subject : as to the 

 area of the Flora, composition, relation to climate of areas ; 

 relation of whole to Floras of bounding countries, and a brief 

 digest of the characters of each of the Nat. Ord. as regards 

 the genera being temperate or tropical, European, Oriental, 

 Malavan, S. Indian or Himalayan. Those are my ideas. 

 (To Mr. Duthie, July 28, 1901.) 



The idea of the sketch, in short, is that the botanical 

 features delimiting areas are best expressed by the dominant 

 Natural Orders. 



This ' boiling down the Indian Flora ' — * the work of a 

 lifetime in 20 pages ' — he found * desperately hard work,' for 

 he made out at least 16,000 known Phanerogams in India, of 

 which about 4000 occurred in his favourite Sikkim, * perhaps 

 the richest flora in the world for its area. 1 



It was helpful to discuss the subject with [Sir D.] Prain, 

 then in England on leave, and to read the proofs of his 

 1 admirable introduction to the Bengal Flora,' 



