XI 



Sir Joseph Hooker has been for some years so 

 incessantly occupied with the completion of his " Flora 

 of British India " that the detailed study of the Kew 

 Pinetum which, as will be seen, he had proposed to 

 himself, is entirely beyond his powers. Kew has, 

 however, had the advantage, in drawing up the present 

 Hand-list, of the assistance of Dr. Masters, F.R.S., who 

 is now the acknowledged authority on the nomenclature 

 of Conifers in this country. As a general rule at Kew, 

 the Genera Plan tar um is accepted as the standard of 

 nomenclature. In the present case some deviations have 

 been adopted, which have received the concurrence of 

 Sir Joseph Hooker. Of these Dr. Masters has been so 

 good as to furnish the following brief explanation : — 



" The arrangement of the genera in the following list 

 d iff ers in a few particulars from that adopted in Bentham 

 and Hooker's Genera Plantar um. The principal differ- 

 ence consists in the maintenance of the Taxaceae as a 

 distinct order as originally proposed by Richard and 

 followed by Endlicher, Lindley, and many other botanists. 

 This arrangement permits of a more natural arrange- 

 ment of the several taxaceous genera under two tribes, 

 the Salisburineae comprising Ginkgo, Cephalotaxus, and 

 Torreya, and the Taxineae including the two sub-tribes 

 Taxeae and Podocarpeae. Prumnopitys, Philippi (with 

 which Stachycarpus, Van Tieghem, is synonymous) is 

 placed by Bentham and Hooker under Podocarpus, 

 but the combination of morphological and histological 

 characters point to the desirability of maintaining it as a 

 separate genus. 



