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394 JOURNAL, ^ 0MB AY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. X. 



A CATALOGUE OF THE FLORA OF MATHERAN AND 

 MAHABLESHWAR. 

 By H. M. Birdwood. 



" There is a pleasure in the pathless woods.''"' 



" Flowers of all heaveas, and lovelier than their names, 

 Grew side by side." 



In now offering to the Society a third edition of the Catalogue of 

 the Flora of Matheran, published in Vol. I of our Journal, and a 

 second edition of the combined Matheran and Mahableshwar Catalogues 

 which appeared in Vol. II, I ought perhaps to explain that I do so, 

 not because those catalogues, as separately published by the Society in 

 pamphlet form, are out of print, — for, so far as 1 know, there has been 

 no great demand for them, — but because their publication has proved 

 of use in one of the ways I particularly desired, and various members 

 €f the Society have been induced to malie a special study of our Hill 

 Flora and have made many additions to my lists ; and it seems desira- 

 ble that the result of their researches during the last nine years should 

 now be recorded in the Journal. The Catalogue is indeed still far 

 from complete, for the obvious reason that, during the four rainy 

 months of the year, when most of the herbaceous plants are at their 

 best, the hills are practically inaccessible to most of us, and even in the 

 dry months our visits to Matheran and Mahableshwar are far too short 

 and too much preoccupied with other business to be turned to much 

 scientific account. Yet, with the aid of such competent botanists as the- 

 Revd. Dr. Fairbank, the late Mr. Gustav Carstensen, the Revd. A. K. 

 Nairne, Dr. Theodore Cookej Surgeon-Major Kirtikar, Mr. Marshall 

 Woodrow, Dr.Lisboa, the late Mr.Chester Macnaghten, Dr.MacDonaldy 

 Mr. James MacDonald and Mr. Dhargalker, 1 have now been able 

 to add 183 names to the list published in 1887, which included 493 

 plants,whereas the present list contains 676 names. And a great pleasure 

 it has been to identify the new plants as they were collected from time to 

 time. Only a few months ago, I had several new discoveries communi- 

 cated to me by Mr. John Macpherson, and among them the beautiful 

 Larkspur, Delphinium dasycaulon, a plant between two and three feet 

 high,with flowers of bright, metallic blue,which I have seen in abundant 

 bloom at Purandhar but had searched for in vain at Matheran, where 

 it has now at last been found near Panorama Point ; and even while 



