NATURE 8 
on 
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1907. 
INDIAN TREES. 
Indian Trees. Being an Account of Trees, Shrubs, 
Woody Climbers, Bamboos and Palms Indigenous 
or Commonly Cultivated in the British Empire. By 
Sir Dietrich Brandis, K.C.J.E., F.R.S. Pp. 
xxxiv+767. (London: Archibald Constable and 
WC; Jutda ss 1906:)) Price Tos) met. 
Si DIETRICH BRANDIS is much to be con- 
gratulated on the completion of this very 
important work on the forest trees and shrubs of 
British India, and its appearance will be hailed with 
great satisfaction by all Indian forest officers and by 
many others who are interested in the botany of that 
country. 
The chief value of this work consists in its com- 
prehensiveness as a classified and descriptive list of 
all the different kinds of trees and shrubs of actual 
or possible value to the forester. The inclusion of 
species belonging to the latter category is of import- 
ance, because, as the author remarks :— 
“* Quite unexpectedly a shrub, a climber, a bamboo 
or a tree may be found to be of considerable import- 
ance from a forester’s point of view, and he should 
then have easy means of identifying the species in 
question.”’ 
Moreover, the value or importance of many trees 
and shrubs is apt to vary very considerably in different 
parts of India. The book will also, by reason of its 
comprehensiveness, be of great assistance as a 
basis for the preparation of local forest floras. The 
“Forest Flora of North-West and Central India,’’ 
which was commenced by the late Dr. Lindsay 
Stewart in 1869 and completed by Sir Dietrich 
Brandis in 1874, has always been regarded as a model 
example of what a local forest flora should be. If 
on this pattern a series of such works could now be 
undertaken for the more important forest regions in 
India, the utility of the present work would be 
realised in the process of their preparation, and the 
difficulties in the way of identifying trees and shrubs 
would be greatly lessened by reason of the limited 
number of species. The literature of Indian forest 
botany is very considerable, but local forest floras, 
with the exception of Gamble’s ‘List of Trees, 
Shrubs and Large Climbers of the Darjiling Dis- 
trict,’’ Kanjilal’s ‘* Forest Flora of the School Circle,’’ 
and Talbot’s ‘‘ Systematic List of Trees, Shrubs, &c., 
of the Bombay Presidency,’’ are more or less out of 
date. 
The number of trees and shrubs described in this 
volume amounts to more than 4400, the flora of 
Ceylon not being included. As this list of woody 
plants represents about one-fourth only of the total 
number of flowering species known to occur within 
this area, some idea can be obtained of the extra- 
ordinary richness and variety of the vegetation of 
British India taken as a whole. The following ex- 
tract from Sir Joseph Hooker’s most interesting 
NO. 1947, VOL. 75] 
“Sletch of the Flora of British India’’* contains a 
brief and clear explanation of the manner in which 
the main features of the 
were brought about :— 
characteristic vegetation 
“The Flora of British India is more varied than 
that of any other country of equal area in the Eastern 
hemisphere, if not on the globe. This is due to its 
geographical extension, embracing so many degrees 
of latitude, temperate and tropical; and to its surface 
rising trom the level of the sea to heights above the 
limits of vegetation; to its climates varying from 
torrid to arctic, and from almost absolute aridity to 
a maximum of humidity; and to the immigration of 
plants from widely different bordering countries, 
notably of Chinese and Malayan on the east and 
south, of Oriental,?, European, and African on the 
west, and of Tibetan and Siberian on the north.”’ 
Mr. Gamble, in his ‘‘ Manual of Indian Timbers,”’ 
estimates the total number of trees and shrubs (in- 
cluding woody climbers), which constitute the forest 
vegetation of the whole of India and Ceylon, to be 
4749. If to these were to be added the more or less 
established species introduced from other countries, 
and allowing for a certain number of shrubs and 
woody climbers which have not been included in the 
estimate, a total of 5000 species would probably be 
reached. 
Some interesting remarks will be found in the in- 
troduction to Sir Dietrich Brandis’s book on the geo- 
graphical distribution of forest trees in India, a sub- 
ject which, by reason of his extensive journeys and 
practical knowledge of the country, he is fully 
qualified to deal with. Other important topics are 
briefly alluded to, chiefly as being problems requiring 
further investigation, such, for example, _— the 
anomalous wood-structure of some kinds of trees and 
woody climbers, the tendency of certain gregarious 
species of trees to form pure forests, the periodic 
flowering of some gregarious species of bamboo and 
Strobilanthes, &c.; and another subject which has 
engaged the author’s attention from time to time re= 
lates to the production of permanently dwarfed trees 
and shrubs by the action of periodical jungle fires. 
The facilities provided in this book for the identifi- 
cation of the species are:—(1) The synopsis of 
naturai orders on pp. xxv to xxxii of the introduc- 
tion. As the determination of the natural order is 
very frequently the most difficult part of the oper- 
ation in the attempt to identify an unknown plant, it 
would have been satisfactory if more assistance could 
have been given by means of keys for each of the 
larger groups of orders belonging to Thalamiflore, 
Calyciflore, Gamopetala, and Monochlamydee. 
(2) The keys to genera and species are quite satisfac- 
tory, and will be very helpful; (3) the index to 
vernacular names on pp. 723-736; and (4) the illus- 
‘trations, which consist of 201 figures interspersed 
throughout the book; many of these are very excel- 
lent portraits, and cannot fail to be of assistance 
towards the identification of what they represent. 
The natural orders are arranged in accordance with 
the ‘Genera Plantarum’’ of Bentham and Hooker, 
1 See in descriptive volume of the ‘‘ Indian Empire "{in the new edition 
of the “ Gazetteer of India.’ 
2 In the sense of Boissier’s ‘‘ Flora Orientalis.”” 
