The great assistance afforded me by the drawings, and their manifest superiority : 
descriptions, however exact and complete, for the identification of plants belonging to this 
most difficult Order, suggested the desirability of having a selection of them published for 
the use of scientific botanists and cultivators of orchids, To this end I offered, should 
my suggestion meet with Dr. King’s approval, my services in selecting a century of them 
for publication in the ‘‘ Annals of the Calcutta Garden,” adding fuller (and often amended) 
descriptions and observations on the species figured than could be given in the limited space 
devoted to the orchids in “ The Flora of British India.” Dr. King’s cordial approval 
gratified me much, and this Part of the Annals is the result, 
I should call attention to the fact that, excellent as the drawings are in many 
respects, as representatives of the plants pourtrayed, they err in manifesting that 
tendency to enlarge, which is a besetting sin of Indian botanical artists; and that 
the analyses leave much to be desired in the matter of proportion and accuracy. Of 
these defects the first is irremediable; the others I have in many instances endeavoured 
to certify or to check, by adding analyses of my own. In no case do these defects 
appear to me to detract materially from the value of the illustrations as a means of 
identifying the plants represented. | 
It remains to add that the drawings here reproduced were the work of many 
native artists of various skill and attainments, subsequent to the series commenced by 
Dr, Roxburgh ; that they date from the period of Dr. Wallich’s superintendency of 
the Royal Gardens; and that the artists name being rarely recorded, the inscription at 
the left hand lower corner of each plate should read * Lithographed by ” and that on 
the corresponding right hand corner *Printed by.” Exact copies of the whole Calcutta 
collection. of drawings of Indian orchids have been, with Dr. King’s permission, made 
under my supervision | for Kew, and are deposited in the Herbarium of that establish- 
ment, the cost having been defrayed by the Trustees of the Bentham Fund. 
ы A С J. D. HOOKER, 
Camp, Sunningdale, October 1892. 
