PREFACE. 
-- р серіні 
Recentiy Dr. (now Sir George) Warr, through his efforts to elucidate the 
questions concerning the poisonous and non-poisonous  Aconites of India, has 
revived the interest in this economically important group of plants. Since then 
samples of Indian Aconites have reached Kew at various times from India, as 
well as from the Imperial Institute, London, where Prof. DuxsTax has been 
carrying on investigations into the chemical properties of some of these plants, 
As l was charged with the necessary comparisons and determinations, I 
had to make myself more particularly familiar with the genus Aconitum. 
So far as the Indian species were concerned, many specimens had been added 
to the collections at Kew since the publication of part I of the first volume of 
the Flora o! British, India (1872), which contained Ranunculaceae. 
Revising the whole of the old and new material, I soon became convinced 
that the old classification would have to be extended and essentially modified, 
particularly with respect to the two most important species . Napellus and 4. 
feroz, as understood by the authors of the Ranunculaceae of India. 
This appeared the more necessary, as the elaboration of the feroz group by 
Mr. P. J. Brunt, in the 5th Volume of the Annals of the Botanic Garden of 
Calcutta (1896), had proved the existence of а considerable number of new 
forms, but had also complicated matters by the adoption of a system of extreme 
synthesis. 
At the same time, more than one-half of the new forms described 
by Brühl were not represented at Kew or could not be identified with certainty 
without seeing the original specimens. 
To complete the revision which I had carried as far as the Kew material 
allowed, I asked for the use of the collections of  Aconites at Calcutta and 
also of those at Saharanpur, where I expected to find some of Royle's types. 
Major Рвліх and Mr. Durrre responded with the greatest liberality to the official 
request which Sir W. THISELTON- DYER addressed to them on my behalf, and the 
collections were placed at my disposal. 
With these collections at Kew and with those at the British Museum and 
Wallich’s Aconites at the Linnean Society within easy reach, I had practically 
the whole existing herbarium material of Indian Aconites at hand. Ап oppor- 
tunity more favourable than might ever occur again was thus given for a thorough 
monograph of this group, and І was, directed by Sir W. Тнівкілох-ПүЕв to work 
it out with a view to publication. | 
