OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 361 



not already known as natives of other parts of equinoctial 

 Africa. 



A complete catalogue of the herbariunij such as I have 

 now described it, even if the number and condition of the 

 specimens admitted of its being satisfactorily given, would 

 be of but little importance, with reference to the geo- 

 graphy of plants. Catalogues of such collections, 

 if drawn up hastily, and from imperfect materials, 

 as must here have been the case, are indeed calculated 

 rather to injure than advance this department of the 

 science, which is still in its infancy, and whose pro- 

 gress entirely depends on the scrupulous accuracy of its 

 statements. To produce confidence in these statements, 

 and in the deductions founded on them, it should in every 

 case distinctly appear that, in establishing the identity of 

 the species enumerated, due attention has been paid 

 to the original auth6rities on which they depend, and, pio 

 wherever it is possible, a comparison actually made with 

 authentic specimens. 



In the account which I am now to give of the present 

 collection, I shall confine myself to a slight notice of the 

 remarkable known plants it contains^ to characters or short 

 descriptions of the more interesting new species, and to 

 some observations on such of the plants as, though already 

 published, have either been referred to genera to which 

 they appear to me not to belong, or whose characters re- 

 quire essential alteration. 



In proceeding on this plan, I shall adopt the order fol- 

 lowed in the botanical appendix to Captain Tuckey's ' Ex- 

 pedition to the River Congo.' And as there will seldom 

 be room for remarks on the geographical distribution of 

 the species I have to notice, I shall chiefly endeavour to 

 make my observations respecting them of some interest to 

 systematic botanists. 



CRUCiFERiE. Fifteen species belonging to this family 

 exist in the collection, one of which only appears to be unde- 

 scribed, and of this the specimens are so imperfect that its 

 genus cannot with certainty be determined. Of those 

 already published, however, the generic characters of 



