THE PALMS OF BRITISH INDIA AND CEYLON. 3o 



Maier, S. J., and to Mr. Roscoe Allen. Mr. Lock, the Assistant 

 Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Peradeniya, obliged us b\ 

 putting the library and herbarium of the Gardens at our disposal. 

 Lastly, we would express our thanks to Mr. Millard, the Honorary 

 Secretary of the Bombay Natural History Society. Without his 

 practical and untiring interest in the subject wo should never have 

 been able to start this series. 



A SHORT HISTORY OF THE EXPLORATION OF THE 

 INDIAN PALM-FLORA. 



Alexander von Humboldt 1 wrote in the year 1849 : " It is remark- 

 able that of this majestic form of plants (palms) up to the time of the 

 death of Linnaeus only 15 species were described. The Peruvian 

 travellers Ruiz and Pavon 2 added to these 8 more species. Bonpland 3 

 and I, in passing over a more extensive range of country from 12° S. 

 Lat. to 21° N. Lat., described 20 new species of palms, and dis- 

 tinguished as many more, but without being able to obtain complete 

 specimens of their flowers. At the present time, 44 years after my 

 return from Mexico, there are from the Old and New World, includ- 

 ing the East Indian species brought by Griffith, above 440 regular- 

 ly described species. The " Enumeratio Plantarum " of my friend 

 Kunth, published in 1841, had already 356 species." It is evident 

 from this account, that the progress made in the exploration of the palm- 

 flora in general was a very slow one, and it cannot be expected that 

 the knowledge of the Indian palms was much advanced at that time, 

 In Rheede's " Hortus Malabaricus," which was finished in 1703, 

 only those palms are described which have been cultivated in India 

 from time immemorial (Areca catechu, Phoenix sylvestris, Borassu? 

 flabellifer, Oocos nucifera,- etc.) Roxburgh's "Plants of the Coas ; 

 • of Coromandel " (1795 — 1816) contains only a few species, whilst 



J A. v. Humboldt, Aspects of Nature in Different Lands and Different Climates, Vol. II 

 126. London, 1850. (Translated from the German.) 



2 Hipolito Ruiz Lopez, born in 1754, was in charge of the Botanic Garden of Madrid, 

 and died in Madrid in 1815. He and Joseph Pavon undertook (1779-1788) a scientific toui 

 through Peru, Chili, and the neighbouring Spanish Provinces. In a shipwreck they 

 lost the greatest part of their botanical collections. The results of their travels were 

 published in the "Flora Peruviana et Chilensis," Madrid, 1798-1802, and the " Systema 

 vegetabilium florae Peruvianas et Chilensis." Madrid, 1798. 



3 Humboldt, in company with Bonpland, travelled in Spanish America between 1793 

 .and 1804. 



