P KEF ACE 



The object of this work is , entirely practical. As Forest administration 

 in India advanced, the want of handbooks was felt, to enable forest 

 officers to acquire a knowledge of the trees and shrubs in the forests, 

 and of the climbers, epiphytes, and other plants which impede and injure 

 the growth of trees. This want has led to the preparation of three works. 

 First, The Flora Sylvatica of Madras, by Lt.-Col. R. H. Beddome, head of 

 the Forest Department in that Presidency, commenced in 1868 and com- 

 pleted in 1873. It contains 325 plates of trees, with full descriptions, and a 

 Manual giving a systematic account of 76 Natural Orders, comprising all 

 trees and the more important shrubs of South India and Ceylon ; 27 ad- 

 ditional plates, with the analysis of 146 genera not figured in the work, 

 are appended. Second, The Forest Flora of British Burma, by Sulpiz 

 Kurz, Curator of the Herbarium at Calcutta, now under preparation. 

 Third, The present work. When these three books are complete, they 

 will comprise descriptions of most trees, a knowledge of which is needful 

 to foresters, in British India. Thus the trees of the Bombay forests will 

 be found either in Colonel Beddome's or in this work ; and the more im- 

 portant trees of the Eastern Himalaya and Eastern Bengal will probably 

 occur, some in this book, others in the Burma Flora. Eventually a 

 Forest Flora of Bengal and Assam, and another of the Bombay Presidency, 

 with local habitats and vernacular names, may become necessary ; but at 

 present the requirements of foresters in the different provinces of India 

 will be sufficiently met by the publication of these three works. 



The geographical limits of this Flora are necessarily artificial. The 

 object was to give an account of the arborescent vegetation in the forest 

 tracts of the Panjab, the North- West Provinces, and of those forests in the 

 Central Provinces which are situated on the Maikal and Satpura range of 

 mountains. The northern limit may be defined as the arid treeless zone 

 of the inner Himalaya ; while to the south the territory is bounded by the 

 open forestless plain which skirts the base of the Maikal and Satpura 

 range from Bilaspur to Berar. The western limit is the Panjab frontier, 



