33 



THE PALMS OF BRITISH INDIA AND CEYLON, 

 INDIGENOUS AND INTRODUCED. 



BY 



E. Blatter, S. J. 



( With Plate I and Map A). 



INTRODUCTION. 



It was a favourite idea of the late Dr. Scheffer, formerly 

 Director of the Botanic Gardens of Buitenzorg, to illustrate 

 by means of photography the palms of the Malay Archi- 

 pelago and many others from various parts of the world which grow 

 so luxuriously in the famous Gardens of Java. His premature 

 death (1880), however, prevented him from giving life to his idea 

 and from finishing the promising series of illustrations which he had 

 started in the " Annales du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg." Pro- 

 fessor Beccari was kind enough to undertake the publication of some 

 of Dr. Scheffer's notes and plates, enriched by his own valuable 

 observations. It is to be regretted that, after the appearance of the 

 " Reliquiae Scheffer ianse," nobody felt inclined to continue the work, 

 as there is scarcely a better way of conveying correct notions regard- 

 ing the habit of palms than by means of photographic illustrations. 

 Even the most elaborate description and detailed analysis will never, 

 in that respect, come up to a tolerably good photograph. It is for this 

 reason that we intend- to publish a series of articles on Indian palms, 

 indigenous as well as introduced, and to illustrate them by as many 

 photographs as we are able to procure. We are sorry not to be in a 

 position to give much fresh information with regard to the morpho- 

 logical characters of most palms, as the leisure required for such 

 observations was not at our disposal. We have, however, tried to 

 make the descriptions as complete as possible by carefully comparing 

 and, where practicable, verifying the descriptions and illustrations as 

 given by various authors. In many cases, where we found a good de- 

 scription of a species we have not hesitated to adopt it almost word for 

 word, supposing that everybody will understand that in a condensed, 

 technical description of a plant not much origiuality can be expected, 

 especially if a uniform plan has once been adopted. In this we are 

 only following in the footsteps of systematic botanists. 



