6 A BRIEF MEMOIR ОЕ 
was a Botanist, determined to print, at their own expense, their father’s manuscript 
exactly as he had left it. This was done under the editorship of the venerable Carey, 
and the book was published, in three octavo volumes, at Serampore in 1832, This 
edition having been for many years out of print and difficult of purchase, a verbatim 
reprint of it, in a single volume (paged, however, according to the original), was under- 
taken in Calcutta in 1874, at the expense of Mr. C. В. Clarke, ғ.в.в., the present dis- 
tinguished President of the Linnzan Society. Mr. Clarke's reprint also includes Rox- 
ناس‎ account of Indian Crypfogamia, which was not included in Carey's Serampore 
edition, but which (having been rescued from oblivion by Griffith) was published by him 
in 1844, in the fourth volume of the Calcutta Journal of Natural History. Mr. Clarke’s 
objects in re-publishing Roxburgh’s Flora are stated at length in his excellent preface to 
his edition of it. The main one was to put the book within the reach of the poorest 
Indian student, and that object was most effectually fulfilled by his issuing the volume 
at a price (five rupees) which could not have covered one-half of the cost of publication, 
even had every copy of the edition been sold within a year, Roxburgh’s 27 lora is still 
a most useful book to persons, who, without being really Botanists, desire to make 
themselves acquainted with the plants of the plains and of the lower slopes of the hills 
of Northern India and of the Madras Presidency. It contains also an account of the 
majority of the exotic plants which are cultivated, even at the present | day, in 
gardens in the plains of India, and also descriptions of some plants which Rox- 
burgh had introduced from various parts of the Malayan Peninsula and: Archipelago 
(which he named in a general way “The Moluccas”). The descriptions of these 
'" Molucca” plants are often meagre in the extreme, and are now practically of по 
value, Many of the common garden plants also are described in an imperfect way. 
And of the plants of the Himalaya and of the higher ranges of Southern India 
above levels of 500 feet or thereby, the Flora gives no account whatever. With re- 
_ ference to the imperfections of Roxburgh’s Flora as a guide to the Botany of the 
Indian mountain ranges, it should, however, be borne in mind that the bulk of the 
indigenous population lives in the plains; and that it is only a small percentage even 
of the European population who actually reside in the hills. | 
. The excellence of Roxburgh's Flora as a botanical work has so long been ack- 
nowledged that it is unnecessary here to enter upon any estimate of it. I would 
simply remark that Roxburgh's descriptions of Indian plants are, for the most part, so 
. accurate and graphic that, while identifying a plant by his Flora, one can feel quite cer- 
_ tain when he has got the very species that its author meant: one does not finish one's 
. attempt with a headache and with the uneasy feeling that his plant may be one of half. 
_ a dozen. I regard Roxburgh's accuracy as something marvellous. When an organ is 
_ not too minute for proper observation by means of the comparatively rude lenses obtain- 
able in Roxburgh’s time, one may trust to his account of it being absolutely correct. 
uthors since Roxburgh—and especially young authors—working chiefly with Herbarium 
| Specimens have, as it seems to me, reduced some of his species with rather too much 
o Jevity. I have worked a good deal with Roxburgh’s Flora and among Indian plants, 
and it takes a good deal to convince me of a Roxburghian blunder! Roxburgh’s ideas 
affinity are in the highest degree sagacious; and, had he lived a few decades later, 
his Flora would have doubtless been as successfully fashioned on the natural system as 
on the Linnean. Finally, I would claim for Roxburgh’s book the merit that it 
‚ contain a single ill-natured or unkind remark, Neyer once does 
its author 
