Illustrationes Plant arum Orient alittm. 467 



characterise this vast region. I found myself surrounded with an immense 

 quantity of materials, either imperfectly known, or entirely inedited. Col- 

 lections which appeared exhausted furnished me, every instant, with objects 

 worthy of being brought to light. Who would believe, for example, that, 

 among the works of Tournefort on the East, there is still matter to be gleaned 

 after Desfontaines and so many others ? Of this, however, I have been con- 

 vinced in examining the herbarium of this great naturalist, his manuscripts, 

 and the original drawings of his intelligent artist, Aubriet, which were com- 

 municated to me by the kindness of M. A. de Jussieu. 



" Among recent collections there are none more complete than those of 

 Aucher-Eloy, who died at Ispahan in 1838, a true martyr to science, after 

 ten years of travels almost entirely devoted to the region of which I have 

 been speaking. The principal part, containing more especially the unique 

 specimens, is deposited in the museum, and has been arranged by M. A. 

 Brongniart : the rest is distributed in different herbariums in Paris and abroad. 

 In Paris, M. Delessert, M. Webb, author of the Natural History of the Canary 

 Islands, M. Maille, and myself possess a considerable part of it. The im- 

 portance of the discoveries of this intrepid traveller may be judged of by 

 reading the volumes of Prodromus Systematis universalis Regni vegetabilis of 

 DeCandolle, which appeared in 1836. The widow of Aucher-Eloy, whom I 

 had the honour of visiting at Constantinople, intrusted me with her husband's 

 MSS., among which are his Journal of 1835, and that of 1837 and 1838, both 

 remarkable for the variety of observations they contain, even out of the pale 

 of botany : they may bear a comparison, if not in a literary point of view, at 

 least for the interest which is attached to those perilous travels, with the 

 letters of Jacquemont written from India. I propose, with the authority of 

 Mme. Eloy, to make it the subject of a separate publication, after having ar- 

 ranged the manuscript ; accompanying it with notes to elucidate the bo- 

 tanical notices interspersed throughout, and giving figures of the plants 

 themselves. 



" Thus, instead of limiting myself to the plants of the East which I gathered 

 myself, I have been led to make known, by descriptions and engravings, 

 certainly not all the unnoticed or little known species of Western Asia (this 

 would be a gigantic enterprise in point of labour and expense), but at least 

 an extensive selection of those species, reserving the power of giving more or 

 less extension to my plan according to circumstances. It is a sort of elastic 

 frame which I am going to open for one of the finest divisions of botanical 

 geography, and as a resort which I propose for the researches of the learned 

 who have already, or may yet have occasion to be engaged there. I have been 

 informed that M. Boissier of Geneva, author of the Botanical Journey into 

 the South of Spain, has begun, almost at the same time as myself, to investi- 

 gate the plants of Aucher-Eloy, but no one has as yet thought of giving 

 engravings of them. The public cannot be otherwise than benefited by these 

 simultaneous efforts. 



" The nature of my selection excludes, for the present at least, all idea of 

 a systematic order by families and genera. It will not be prudent, or even 

 possible, till after a long acquaintance with the plants of this region, and of 

 all the works bearing on it, to think of offering to the public a methodic 

 enumeration, a sort of flora of Western Asia: we must only aim at this 

 object. If I cannot attain it, I shall at least have contributed to prepare for 

 others the accomplishment of a work' which is much wanted in a scientific 

 point of view. 



" Once engaged in this career, I soon found that my single powers were not 

 sufficient for a work of such extent. I was therefore obliged to secure the 

 assistance of a man of science who was already of some authority ; and I 

 was fortunate enough to obtain that of M. Spach, assistant naturalist at the 

 museum, well known by works evincing sound criticism, and by his co-opera- 

 tion with M. de Mirbel in the most delicate researches of vegetable physiology. 



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