36 FLORA INDICA. 



gret; hence the irresistible desire to rest contented with a 

 character, however bad, so long as it is obtained with diffi- 

 culty, and in the observer's opinion is tolerably constant. It 

 is strange that local naturalists cannot see that the discovery 

 of a form uniting two others they had previously thought dis- 

 tinct, is much more important than that of a totally new 

 species, inasmuch as the correction of an error is a greater 

 boon to science than is a step in advance. 



C. Geographical Distribution. 



This, which is in very many respects the most interesting 

 branch of botany, has made very little real progress of late 

 years, owing to the confused state of Systematic Botany; for 

 we do not consider rudely cataloguing the ill-defined species 

 of limited areas, or loosely defining geographical regions by 

 the supposed prevalence of certain natural orders or forms of 

 vegetation, as calculated to advance directly the philosophy of 

 distribution, however useful such regions are to the beginner, 

 or such catalogues to the systematist. 



If we take India as the area for examination, we are met at 

 the outset by difficulties that plainly indicate the backward 

 state of Indian Botany. Beginning with the first requirement 

 of the student of geographical distribution, we are literally 

 perfectly ignorant of the numerical value of a single important 

 Indian natural order of plants : turning to their numerical 

 proportions, there are no sufficient data for saying which of 

 the five largest orders in the vegetable kingdom is the most 

 abundant in India, viz. LeguminoscB, Composite, GraminecB, Or- 

 chidece, or Rubiacea, nor in what climates each most prevails ; 

 still less do we know how the important tribes of these na- 

 tural orders are distributed, or what physical features of tem- 

 perature, elevation, and moisture they indicate, or to what 

 other floras their relative predominance allies that of India. 

 There is no work that pointedly indicates the natural orders 

 peculiar to India, aiid still less the genera and species. With 



