224 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
species, frequent the deepest forests of the Eastern Himalaya, 
Burma, Malabar, the Malay Peninsula, and Ceylon. ~ 
Of shrubs that form a feature in the landscape from their gre- 
same habit, which they retain under cultivation in Europe. Three 
local, all but stemless palms are eminently gregarious—Phenia 
farinifera of the Coromandel coast, Nannorhops Ritchieana of ex- 
profuse in individuals, the species are remarkably local; those of 
the Eastern Himalaya differing from those of the Western, these 
again from the Burmese, and all from those of the Western Penin- 
sula and Ceylon; and most of these last from one another 
¢ in India. They include the 
beautiful white, red, and blue Nympheas, Nelumbium speciosum, 
f the Victoria Regin 
icto egina 
of South American waters; also many carnivorous bladder-worts 
spreading fronds, resembling green lichens more than flowering 
lants. They are most common in Malabar and Ceylon, and are 
never found in rivers that have glacial sources. Marine flowering 
plants are few indeed, and are mostly of wide oceanic distribution. 
Of peculiar littoral sand-hill plants there are few, the most notable 
being the above-mentioned Phenix farinifera, Ipomea biloba, and a 
curious grass, Spinifex, of Australian affinity. The esturial plants 
will be enumerated when describing the tidal flora of the Sun- 
darbans. 
The number of recorded species of flowering plants, in India, 
approaches 17,000,* under 176 natural orders;}+ and there are 
probably 600 species of ferns and their allies. 
* In the Flora of British India (1872-1897) about 15,900 species of flowering 
plants are describe t since the publication of the first volumes of that work 
the greater part of Burma has fallen under British rule, and large accessions 
have been made to the Indian flora from that and other quarters, especially 
from the Malay Peninsula. 
+ Genera Plantarum (by G. Bentham and J. D. H., 1862-1883), 
200 natural orders of flowering plants are described. Some of these have been 
rightly subdivided by earlier or later authors. 
