360 OBSERVATIONS ON PLANTS 



Oudney, endeavoured to preserve the more striking and 

 useful plants which he met with. His collection was ori- 

 ginally more considerable ; but before it reached England 

 many of the specimens were entirely destroyed. It still 

 includes several of the medicinal plants of the natives ; but 

 these beinw without either flowers or fruit, cannot be deter- 

 mined. 



209] In the whole herbarium, the number of undescribed 

 species hardly ec[uals twenty ; and among these not one 

 new genus is found. 



The plants belonging to the vicinity of Tripoli were sent 

 to me by Dr. Oudney, before his departure for Pezzan. 

 This part of the collection, amounting to one hundred 

 species, was merely divided into those of the immediate 

 neighbourhood of Tripoli, and those from the mountains of 

 Tarhona and Imsalata. 



It exceeds in extent the herbarium formed by Mr. Ritchie 

 near Tripoli, and on the Gharian hills, which, however, 

 though containing only fifty-nine species, includes twenty- 

 seven not in Dr. Oudney's herbarium. 



The specimens in Mr. Ritchie's collection are carefully 

 preserved, the particular places of growth in most cases 

 given, and observations added on the structure of a few ; 

 sufficient at least to prove, that much information on the 

 vegetation of the countries he visited might have been ex- 

 pected from that ill-fated traveller. 



In these two collections united, hardly more than five 

 species are contained not already pubhshed in the works 

 that have appeared on the botany of North Africa ; parti- 

 cularly in the ' Flora Atlantica' of M. Desfontaines, in the 

 ' Flore d'Egypte ' of M. Delile, and in the ' Florae Libycse 

 Specimen ' of Professor Viviani, formed from the herbarium 

 of the traveller Delia Cella. 



The plants collected in the Great Desert and its oases, 

 between Tripoli and the northern confines of Bornou, and 

 which somewhat exceed a hundred, are, with about eight 

 or ten exceptions, also to be found in the works now men- 

 tioned. And, among those of Bornou and Soudan, 

 which fall short of one hundred, very few species occur 



