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IV. Descriptions of those species of Polygonum and Fagopyrum which are 

 contained in the Indian Herbarium of J. Forbes Royle, Esq., F.L.S., &fc., 

 late Superintendant of the H.E.I. Botanical Garden at Saharunpore, and 

 now Professor of Materia Medica in Kings College, London. By Charles 

 C. Babington, Esq., M.A., F.L.S., F.G.S., Sgc. 



Read December 20th, 1836. 



IMy friend Professor Royle having done me the honour to submit to my ex- 

 amination and description those species of Poli/gonum and Fagopyrum which are 

 contained in his extensive Indian Herbarium, I have now the pleasure of com- 

 municating the result to the Linnean Society. After the valuable monograph 

 by Professor Meisner upon the Wallichian Polygoneae, published in the third 

 volume of the Plantce Asiaticce rariores, it was not to be expected tliat many 

 n&w species would occur in this collection. I was therefore the more pleased 

 by finding not fewer than ten totally distinct forms amongst the natives of 

 the Himalayan mountains and the upper provinces of India. I would parti- 

 cularly direct attention to the tribe Avicularia, in which Dr. Wallich's herba- 

 rium is peculiarly deficient. Meisner describes four species, all of them very 

 closely allied to P. aviculare, Linn., only one of which occurs in this collection, 

 but the other three are replaced by five most interesting plants, only one of 

 which appears to have been previously noticed. 



In all cases in which I have been able to identify my plants with those of 

 Professor Meisner, I have adopted his specific characters, but have always 

 drawn my detailed descriptions from the Roylean specimens which I had before 

 me. My friend, Professor Don, has most kindly given me his valuable assist- 

 ance, and has added much to the value of this paper by identifying several of 

 Meisner's species with those described by him in his Prod. Fl. Nepalensis. 



As this family has been so recently illustrated in the PI. Asiat. Rar., I have 



