PREFACE, 
Tar attempt here made to give an account of the Orchids of the Western 
Himalaya may be regarded as a supplement to the splendid work by Sir 
George King and Мг. В. Pantling on the Orchids of the Sikkim Himalaya, 
which was published in 1898 as Volume VIII of the Annals of the Royal 
Botanic Garden, Calcutta. With Sir Joseph Hooker’s monograph of the Orchids 
of British India as a basis, and Sir George King’s Sikkim Orchids as a model 
for a local orchid-flora, the preparation of the present contribution has been 
very greatly facilitated. 
Of the many eminent botanists who contributed largely in by-gone years to 
the orchidology of the Western Himalaya, the following names should be especially 
mentioned :—Govan, Royle, Wallich, Jacquemont, Vicary, Falconer, Griffith, Edgeworth, 
Thomson, Madden, Strachey, Winterbottom, Fleming and Lady Dalhousie. Тһе 
collections made during more recent years by Aitchison, Brandis, Davidson, C. B. 
Clarke, Mackinnon, Gamble, Lace and others have been the means of adding 
considerably to our knowledge of the subject. 
Since the publication of Sir Joseph Hooker’s monograph of the Orchids of 
British India, in 1890 further important additions have been made to the Orchid- 
flora of the Western Himalaya. Many interesting species were collected during 
my two botanical tours through Kashmir in 1892 and 1893, and in subsequent 
years by specially trained native collectors, who were sent to Налага, Kashmir, 
Chitral, Pangi, Garhwál, Kumaon and to the Sub-Himalayan tracts of Rohilkhand 
and N. Oudh.* | 
In a privately printed list of Simla plants collected by Mr. Babington 
Smith and Lady Elisabeth Smith thirty-two species of orchids are recorded; and 
four years later (in 1903) Sir Henry Collett’s most excellent book, the “ Flora 
Simlensis," appeared, in which thirty-eight species are described, and seven of 
_ these are figured. 
Тһе drawings for the fifty-eight plates contained in the present work were 
prepared under my supervision by H. Hormusji, for many years artist to the 
Botanical Department of Northern India. These plates represent only such species 
as have not already been figured in the Sikkim work, with one exception, viz., 
Habenaria latilabris, a species which has been so frequently confused with what is 
now known under the name of Я. Edgeworth Hook. f. (Platanthera acuminata 
* Таш glad of this opportunity of being able to bring to notice the services of one of these men, viz, Inayat Khan, 
not only because of his remarkable aptitude as a collector aud of his skill in the selection and preservation of herbarium 
specimens, but chiefly. by reason of his genuine enthusiasm in his work, by means of which he has acquired a very extensive 
and practical knowledge of botany. 
Ann. Roy. Bor. Garb., Carc, Vor. IX. 
