NATURE 



615 



THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1916. 



INDIAN LOCAL FLORAS. 

 The Flora of the Nilgiri and Pulney Hill-tops 

 (above 6500 feet), being the Wild and Com- 

 moner introduced Flowering Plants round the 

 Hill-stations of Ootacamund, Kotagiri, and 

 Kodaikanal. By Prof. P. F. Fyson. 2 vols. 

 Vol i., pp. xxvi+475. Vol. ii., 286 illustrations. 

 ' (Madras : The Superintendent, Government 



Press; London: Thacker and Co. , 1915.) Price 

 10 rupees or 155. 2 vols. 



THE need for guides to the plants of par- 

 ticular Indian districts has been felt since 

 i English rule was established in the East. The 

 i wish to meet it, perhaps stimulated by the 

 I posthumous publication of Roxburgh's "Flora 

 \ Indica " in 1832, led to the preparation of 

 Graham's Bombay "Catalogue" in 1839, of 

 Munro's " Hortus Agrensis" in 1844, and of Voigt's 

 "Hortus Calcuttensis " in 1845. The appearance 

 in 1855 of that fine fragment, the "Flora Indica" 

 of Hooker and Thomson, led to Sir W. Elliot's 

 " Flora Andhrica " for Madras, of which the only 

 part was issued in 1859, and to Dalzell and 

 Gibson's "Bombay Flora," published in 1861. In 

 1872 Sir Joseph Hooker commenced as an official 

 undertaking his masterly " Flora of British India." 

 After this date, except as regards Bombay, the 

 requirements of forest officers involved the pro- 

 vision of Beddome's Madras "Flora Sylvatica " 

 and Brandis's "Forest Flora of North-west and 

 Central India" in 1874, Kurz's "Forest Flora of 

 British Burma " in 1877, and Gamble's " List of 

 the Trees, etc., of the Darjeeling District" in 

 1878. With these exceptions, between 1872 and 

 1897, when the last volume of Hooker's "Flora" 

 appeared, the energies of Indian botanists were 

 directed to assisting that author in his arduous 

 task. 



The official scheme involved the preparation, 

 using Hooker's pioneer work as a basis, of local 

 floras of Bombay, Madras, the Panjab, Upper 

 and Central India, Bengal, the North-west 

 Himalaya, the Eastern Himalaya, Assam, and 

 Burma. These provincial floras were in turn to 

 serve as the foundation, where required, of floras 

 of still narrower areas. The necessary local flora 

 of Bengal was completed in 1903 ; that of Bombay 

 in 1908; that for Upper and Central India, begun 

 in 1903, is nearly complete; that for Madras is 

 in hand and has made considerable progress. 

 Delays have attended the preparation of those fc«- 

 the Panjab and the North-west Himalaya; the time 

 is not yet ripe for those of the Eastern Himalaya, 

 Assam, or Burma. Based on the Bengal work, 

 divisional or district floras of Chutia Nagpur and 

 NO. 2414, VOL. 96] 



the Sundribuns have been issued ; similar works 

 for Central India and Dehra Dun, the district in 

 which the Imperial Forest School is situated, have 

 been based on that for Upper India. 



India is a country where public officers aim at 

 -efficiency; the letter is never there permitted to 

 kill the spirit of a prescribed prc^ramme. Hence 

 the appearance in 1902 of Sir Henry Collett's 

 " Flora Simlensis " for a North-west Himalayan 

 district, before the preparation of the correspond- 

 ing provincial flora cobld be undertaken, and the 

 appearance now of a similar work by Prof. Fyson 

 for a South Indian district, before the Madras 

 local flora has been completed. The justification 

 in both cases is the same and is ample. The 

 Palnis and the Nilgiris, like the Simla hills, are 

 holiday resorts, the visitors to which during vaca- 

 tion leisure take an intelligent interest in natural 

 objects and desire to learn something of what 

 they see. 



The area dealt with by Prof. Fyson Is not a 

 continuous one and, apart from this, does not lend 

 itself readily to physiographical delimitation. The 

 author has therefore wisely confined his attention 

 to the constituents of the relatively temperate and 

 herbaceous vegetation met with above the level of 

 6500 feet, where there is a rapid, if not abrupt, 

 change from the tropical and sub-tropical 

 arborescent flora lower down, rather than en- 

 deavoured to include every species that occurs 

 within a definitely circumscribed area. His 

 descriptions are clear and full, and his field ex- 

 perience has led him to deal not only with species 

 that may be regarded as indigenous, but with those 

 that have almost certainly been introduced. How 

 important the introduced element in his area is 

 we gather from the fact that one-seventh of the 

 species dealt with are thoroughly established 

 aliens. 



As in the case of the corresponding work for 

 Simla, illustrations of a considerable number of 

 the Nilgiri and Palni plants described by the 

 author are provided. For the original drawings 

 he has been particularly indebted to Lady Bourne, 

 herself for many years a close and critical student 

 of the vegetation of the Palnis ; a number of the 

 illustrations are by Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. Fyson. 

 In order to secure most of the others, Prof. Fyson 

 has successfully adopted the method of Roxburgh 

 at the close of the eighteenth century and of 

 Wight in the earlier half of last century, by enlist- 

 ing the services of a skilful young Indian artist. 

 The result has been satisfactory, and the flora 

 before us should serve its purpose well. There 

 are a few misprints in addition to those enumerated 

 in the list of errata; perhaps the most obtrusive, 

 if intrinsically one of the least important, is 

 Thompson for Thomson on p. 277. 



A A 



