562 



ACTA ET AGENDA 



BY THB 



BOMBAY BOTANISTS. 

 By 



E. Blatter, S. J. 



(Read before the Bombay Natural History Society on 

 16th August 1906.) 

 Did it ever strike you when perusing a Flora on Indian plants, 

 through how many hands each flower had passed and how often nearly 

 all of them had changed their specific, and not seldom their generic 

 names, till, finally, they had to be satisfied with the name they had 

 been given when first discovered by a botanist ? W. Gray 1 gives an 

 example, viz., Cissampelos pareira, L., a common climbing plant of 

 the Konkan and Kanara jungles, which has been described under 

 18 different names by various collectors, and Allophylus cobbe, Bl. 

 possesses, according to Hooker's " Flora of British India," no less 

 than 30 synonyms. It is evident that under such circumstances 

 the identification of a plant took a good deal of time, just on account 

 of the many authorities which had to be consulted before one 

 was able to find the right description ; and Gray is not quite 

 wrong when he says : " Indian botanists have much to answer for; 

 they have in this way not only introduced confusion into the old and 

 well defined genera, but they have also unnecessarily created new 

 groups and subdivisions which are of no practical value." 2 He then 

 continues blaming our old botanists with regard to other points, and, 

 as it seems, not without reason. I think, however, that we could 

 advance as many reasons in their defence. Is it, for instance, not quite 

 natural that in such a big country as India, where -a great number of 

 naturalists were working at the same time and in different parts 

 of the vast area, many were ignorant of the work done by 

 others and, for this reason, selected the names for the plants they 

 had found from their own Latin or Greek vocabulary? There 

 arises at least one advantage from the whole list of synonyms : 

 the names of those will not be forgotten so easily who under the 



1 . Dr. W. Gray : " The Botany of the Bombay Presidency," in the Bombay Gazetteer, 

 Vol. XXV, p. 311. 



2 . Dr. H. Gray, 1. c, p. S12. 



