58 FLORA INDICA. 



ani's ' Flora of Dalmatia' we liaye an excellent systematic and 

 descriptive work, displaying enlarged views of the limits of 

 genera and species. 



It remains to aUude to the labours of writers on American 

 botany, to whom we have been indebted in an unusually great 

 degree, considering the remoteness of that country from In- 

 dia. Of these, the 'Flora Boreali- Americana^ of Sir Wil- 

 liam Hooker, and the unfinished ' Flora of North America,' 

 by Torrey and Gray, are books of standard excellence : the 

 plants described in both these great works having been cri- 

 tically compared with European specimens, their authors have 

 been enabled to throw great light upon their distribution, 

 limits, and variations, of which, however, Eui'opean botan- 

 ists have been slow to take advantage. Gray's 'Flora of 

 the Northern United States' is another excellent systematic 

 work; and the ' Illustrations of the Genera of North American 

 Plants,' by the same admirable botanist, is one of the most 

 able and philosophical works in the whole range of botanical 

 literature, and one to which we have been largely indebted. 



B. Enumeration of Herbaria. 



We now proceed to enumerate the materials which we have 

 at our disposal in the preparation of the Flora Indica. It is 

 not possible at present to estimate with accuracy the number 

 of species contained in each individual herbarium, as a critical 

 examination of every one would be necessary for that purpose. 

 We have, however, endeavoured to approximate to a correct 

 estimate. 



1. The great Wallichian Herbarium, the history of which 

 is well known to all botanists, having been given in detail in 

 the lithographed list of its contents, which was distributed 

 with it, also in the ' Plantse Asiaticse Rariores,' and in the in- 

 troduction to Wight and Arnott's Prodromus. The first set 

 of this truly valuable collection was presented by the East 

 India Company to the Linnean Society of London, in whose 



