TEANSACTIONS OF SECTION 1>. — DEFT. ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. 585 



this immense island, the colonists have, for all practical purposes, no less than six 

 local Horas. A^^ain, in addition to this, when the species is not confined to 

 Australia, its distribution over other parts of the workl is given. 



2. Next in importance to the ' Flora Australiensis,' and wliatwhen finished will 

 be of even greater magnitude, comes the * Flora of Britisli India ' by Sir Joseph 

 Hooj£er. This work was begun in the year 1872, ajid was continued witli the 

 assistance of various botanists to the end of jMyrtacete. Since then — and the 

 world will have no reason to complain of the change — it has been carried on by Sir 

 Joseph Hooker and Mr. O. B. Clarke alone. It has now reached to the com- 

 mencement of Vaccinieie, and more parts may be shortly e.xpected, which will 

 carry the work forward to the end of Monopetalte. 



The 'Flora of British India' takes in the whole of that country which lies 

 between the southern slopes of the Himalayas and Ceylon. Besides this it includes 

 the British portion of the Malayan peninsida, and the islands which lie between 

 that country and India jjroper. Thus it will form the connecting link between 

 Western Asia on the one hand, which is being described by jM. Boisseau in his 

 ' Flora Orientalis,' and on the other with the floras of Sumatra and Java, which 

 have been so carefully elaborated by Blume, Miquel, and others. 



Many portions of the vast tract covered by these and other authors, such as 

 Borneo and New Guinea, can hardly yet be said to have been properly explored, 

 and therefore, many new genera and specie.* maybe yet expected to occur ; still 

 it is not likely that the additions will comprise more than a small proportion of 

 what is already known. 



It is computed that when the ' Flora of British Indi.i ' is completed, it will contain 

 descriptions of some twelve to fourteen thousand species of phanerogams and ferns. 



In some re.spects the dithcidties attending the elaboration of the Indian flora 

 are greater than in the case of any other countrj'. In the first place, the climate of 

 a large portion of the land is so humid, that the satisfactory preservation of speci- 

 mens by drying is almost impossible. The consequence of this has been that a great 

 deal of the material, placed at the disposal of authors, has often been very de- 

 fective. In the second place, the hterarv difficulties are unusually great ; for India, 

 through having been so long known to Europeans, has been more or less explored 

 by botanists, who for the last hundred and fifty years have been writing with very 

 commendable diligence, but varying ability, descriptions of all the plants they met 

 with. These writings are very numerous, and by themselves form a library of no 

 small dimensions. But all have to be searched out, and their contents, often very 

 misleadhio-, carefully digested. 



3. In Mr. J. G. Baker's 'Flora of the Mauritius and the Seychelles' we have 

 another of the colonial floras of much worth and exactness ; and one which, with 

 Professor B. Balfour's researches into the vegetation of the island of Socotra, helps 

 to bridge over the gap between the South Asiatic and Eastern African floras. Frora 

 Mr. Baker's pen we may hope to liave also before long a Flora of Madagascar. 



4. The ' Flora of Tropical Africa,' by Professor Oliver, was begun in the year 

 1808, and continued, with the assistance of other botanists, to the end of the third 

 volume, which was published in 1877, by which the work has been brought down 

 to the end of ' Ehenacese.' Since then for various causes it has been at a standstill. 

 But we may be permitted to hope that ere long it will again be resinned ; for the 

 collection into one book of all the species which are known to grow within the 

 tropics of Africa would be extremely convenient, as the number of writers on 

 African botany, if not as great as those on India, is still sufficientlj- great to make 

 the identification of specimens a matter of very considerable labour. No doubt, 

 when finished, the ' Flora of Tropical Africa ' will not approach to anything like the 

 completeness of the other floras which I have mentioned, for of all parts of the 

 world Central Africa has up to the last few years been hidden in obscurity, and the 

 number of .species, wliich were known when the first volume was issued, probably 

 did not exceed the number of those which had still to be discovered. 



5. I may mention the ' Flora Oapensis,' by the late Dr. Harvey and Dr. Sonder 

 (although it neither was begun nor has been continued dm-ing the last eight years), 

 if only to point out that if completed the flora of the whole of Africa south of the 



