THE FLORA OF BRITISH INDIA 225 
The largest order of flowering plants in all India is Orchidee, of 
which more than 1600 species are recorded, and additions are con- 
stantly being discovered. The greater number of these are tropical 
and epiphytic, and with comparatively few exceptions all are en- 
demic. Ten are European, and they are British.“ It is only in 
the Eastern Himalaya, Burma, and the Malay Peninsula that the 
order predominates ; in ph om parts of India, Leguminose, Gramineae, 
an mber them 
The ten dominant orders = flowering plants in all British India 
are in praca sequence 
z Oheniasa 6. Acanthacee. 
2. Leguminosae. 7. Composite 
3. Graminea. 8. Cyperacee 
4 9. ata. 
5. Euphorbiaceae. 10. Urticacea. 
Of these, all but Labiate and Composite are more tropical than 
temperate. Composite take a very low place, and would, but for the 
an exceptional poverty in what is not only the largest of all the 
rders of flowering plants in the ee but the one that heads the 
list in most other parts of the glo 
The following data, deduced aie the whole Indian flora, are 
of use for comparison with those of its several botanical provinces. 
The properion of monocotyledons to eoenene is approximately 
as 1 to 2:3; of genera to species as about 1 to 7. Of palms there 
are more than 220 recorded species ; of bambooss 120 ; of conifers, 
only 22; of Cycadea, 5. Of genera with 100 or more species there 
others are Impatiens, Eugenia, eames Strobilanthes, Ficus, 
Bulbophyllum, Fria, Habenaria, and 
ritish India is primarily divisible eo three botanical areas or 
regions—a Himalayan, an eastern, and a western. The two latter 
“di 
) y oaks, 
the eastern has no alpine om a ae restricted temperate one, few 
conifers, many oaks and pa and a great preponderance of 
orchids; the western has ones oe aoe local) conifer, no oaks, few 
Balin, and ag sce few orchids. Further, the Himalayan 
flora abounds in European genera; the — in Chinese and 
Malayan ; the Eee a in European, Oriental, and African. These 
three botanical regions or areas are divisible, into nine botanical 
rallorhiza innata, Goodyera repens, Spiranthes autumnalis, Listera 
ovata ied cordata, Epipogum aphyllum, Cephalanthera ensifolia, Epipac tis lati- 
folia, Orchis sera a viridis, Herm poten Monorchis. All these are 
tem Tn n Himalayan ; a few are also 
aaa goin be ieee’ out that throughout this sketch numbers are 
sooeciet only, and are liable to revision 
