INTRODUCTION 
1. History OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE FERN 
HOHE 
FLora OF THE BomBay PRESIDENCY 
Or those that wrote expressly on the Flora of 
the Presidency, Graham ’* is the first to give 
some information on the: cryptogamic vegeta- 
tion. He mentions twenty-five species of ferns 
with notes as to the places where they had been 
collected. Dalzell and Gibson’ did not add 
anything to the knowledge of the cryptogams. 
We read in the preface to their ‘ Bombay 
Flora’: ‘The cryptogamic portion of the 
catalogue has, in order to meet the present 
wants of our readers, been literally transcribed 
from that of Mr. Graham, but we hope, ona 
future opportunity, to be able to present it to 
the public ina more compact and enlarged 
form.’ Whether their hope was ever realized 
we are not able to say; -at least we could not 
find any further publication on the subject by 
1J. Graham: Catalogue of the Plants growing in Bombay and 
its vicinity, 1839. 
2A, Dalzell and A, Gibson: The Bombay Flora, Bombay, 
1861. 
