4 FLORA INDICA. 



scientific work that we offer this commencement of the Flora 

 Indica to the public; but though the advancement of abstract 

 science is indeed its primary object^ yet as we yield to none 

 in our estimate of the value of economic botany, we confi- 

 dently trust that, as pioneers in this department also, our 

 labours will be found of material service. 



On this account we need scarcely ofier an apology for our 

 partial use of Latin, which is necessary, as well for economy 

 of space, as because we are labouring for the benefit of Con- 

 tinental botanists as well as English ones, and because we 

 write under a sense of the obligation the former have ren- 

 dered us, by having puMished in Latia (instead of French or 

 German, or still less familiar languages) the many valuable 

 memoirs on economic and scientific Indian botany, which we 

 owe to their exertions. When the flora of India is established 

 on a scientific foundation, it ■will be desirable that a compen- 

 dious English version of such a work as ours should be pro- 

 vided for the use of those who do not pursue science for its 

 own sake, but yet are desirous of availing themselves of its 

 residts : at present such an undertaking would be premature. 



Had it been possible to take up the economic plants of 

 British India by themselves, and to present a history of them 

 to the English reader, we should at once have devoted our- 

 selves to the task, with the certainty of obtaining an amount 

 of encouragement which a so-called pajdng work is sure to 

 command, but which one of a more scientific nature is not 

 thought worthy of receiving. We should however only be 

 deceiving the public, were we to propose a scheme which, in 

 the present deplorably backward state of scientific Indian bo- 

 tany on the one hand, and the confasion of Indian economic 

 botany on the other, is literally impracticable. Dr. Royle's 

 great work, pubhshed twenty years ago, is the only one on 

 Indian plants that attempts to combine practical with scien- 

 tific botany ; but five volumes of its size would not bring the 



in the Himalaya by the common Aconitum Na/pellus of Europe and North 

 America, aa well as by other species of the genus. 



