xxiv INTRODUCTION 



on furlough at home, have assisted ine materially in the work. Colonel A. A. 

 Barrett has helped me to work up Rosacece, and otherwise assisted me 

 greatly. Mr. H. H. Haines has most generously devoted considerable time, 

 while at home on furlough, in assisting me in Celastracece, Bhamnacece and 

 Ampelidea. Mr. A. F. Broun, late Conservator of Forests in Ceylon and now 

 Director of Woods and Forests in the Sudan, together with Mrs. Broun, have 

 enabled me by their careful dissections and sketches to understand the species of 

 Strychnos and other difficult genera. Mr. C. B. Smales has devoted a great part 

 of his furlough from Burma to working up with me oaks and chesnuts, Ficus, 

 palms and bamboos. His intimate practical knowledge of the bamboos of Upper 

 Burma, their appearance and mode of growth, has been invaluable, and 

 without his help I could never have mastered this difficult order. ' In connec- 

 tion with bamboos I wish to state that Dr. Otto Stapf has communicated to me 

 the result of his as yet unpublished researches, which establish two great 

 divisions of bamboos, one with, the other without endosperm in the ripe seed. 

 Mr. T. F. Bourdillon has from the beginning been most useful in regard to the 

 forest vegetation of Travancore. As already mentioned, Mr. Gilbert Rogers 

 has given me most valuable information about palms and bamboos of the 

 Andamans. Mr. A. E. Wild, late Conservator of Forests, Bengal, has helped 

 me steadily from the beginning in examining the specimens at the Museum of 

 the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 



I tender my thanks to His Majesty's Secretary of State for India for having 

 purchased 300 copies of this book. Mr. C. B. Clarke has been a true friend in 

 this matter ; without his intervention the book would probably never have 

 been published. The publishers have placed me under obligations by not 

 losing patience with the long delay and the great bulk of the work, neither 

 of which I anticipated when I commenced it. 



I am keenly alive to the many imperfections of this work, and I know that 

 numerous errors and omissions will be discovered in it. With the over- 

 whelming mass of detail that had to be mastered, this, at my time of life, was 

 perhaps unavoidable. In spite of these imperfections, the book will I hope 

 in some respects facilitate the progress of good forest management in India. 

 Not that the knowledge of species means good forest management. But it is 

 the first step towards the study of matters which are of real importance in 

 forestry : the habits, mode and rate of growth of trees, their ability to appro- 

 priate certain mineral substances from the soil, the capacity of their leaves and 

 other green parts to take up carbon dioxide and to form timber, a capacity 

 which varies in different species of trees to a degree not yet sufficiently 

 recognized by botanists, and finally their habits of flowering and seeding, as 

 well as their ability to reproduce themselves from coppice shoots or root- 

 suckers. The study of the sylvicultural requirements of the different species 

 is the foundation of a successful system of treatment, leading up to the 

 greatest annual production of timber and other forest produce per acre. 

 Foresters in India should always bear in mind that botany is not forestry, but 

 that the knowledge of species is indispensable. With the enormous number 

 of genera and species in India the acquisition of this knowledge is difficult. 

 I hope I may have succeeded in smoothing the way a little, and in this hope I 

 wish all my young friends, whether they have learnt their profession in 

 Europe or at the Imperial Forest School in India, an honourable aud prosperous 

 career in the Indian forests. Should any one look down upon them because 

 their work makes no show and does not bear fruit immediately, like that of 

 the engineer and other public officers, they will console themselves with the 

 proud consciousness that they are the guardians of the future and permanent 

 interests of the 300 millions who inhabit the great British Indian Empire, 

 and that they are contributing materially to ensure the comfort and welfare 

 of future generations. 



