PREFACE. Vll 



other standard works on the subject. This, we submit, should 

 not be considered in any way to lessen the importance of the 

 work. It has been truly observed by an eminent writer : — 



"Exaggerated individual energy and independence have become conceit.... 



" The chief business with him (a young man) is not to work well, but to work 

 in a different mode to others; originality is more to him than beauty. This idea 

 which now-a-days has such a strong hold on all heads, even the most empty, re- 

 minds us of that graceful epigram of Goethe's on originals. A certain person 

 says, ' I do not belong to any School, there exists no living master from whom 

 I would take lessons, and as to the dead, I have never learnt any thing from 

 them,' which, if I am not mistaken, means, 'lama fool on my own account.' 

 What else is this extravagant desire for originality, but, as we have said, an 

 exaggeration of individual energy, a want of equilibrium, the sin, in fact, of 

 pride?"* 



Dr. Garnett writes : — 



" The truly artistic production, * * * may well outlast the inferior work * * 

 as the diamond survives the glass which it engraves." | 



The illustrated works on Indian Botany of such well-known 

 masters of the subject, as Rheede, Roxburgh, Royle, Barman, 

 Brandis, Beddome, Griffith, Wallich, Wight and several others, 

 are not easily accessible to those who are interested in the study 

 of the subject. It is, therefore, that their illustrations have been 

 copied and supplemented, where necessary, by further details. 



I was in charge of the Indigenous Drugs Court of the United 

 Provinces Exhibition held at Allahabad in December 1910 and 

 January and February 1911. One of the special features of 

 the Indigenous Drugs Court was the exhibition of herbarium 

 specimens and of drawings of almost all the known plants used 

 in medicine in this country. I collected drawings from the 

 illustrated works on Indian Botany and other standard works 

 on that subject available in the United Provinces. The late 

 Dr. E. G. Hill lent to the exhibition the illustrated works on 

 Botany from the Allahabad Public Library of which he was 

 the Secretary. The President and the Imperial Forest Botanist 

 of the Forest Research Institute of Dehra Dun were kind 

 enough to lend illustrated books on Botany which were not 

 to be had at Allahabad. The late Lieutenant-Colonel Kirtikar, 



* " The Decadence of Modern Literature by Armando Palacio Valdes of 

 Madrid in the International Library of Famous Literature, Vol. xx 



t " The use and value of Anthologies," in the International Library of 

 Famous Literature, Vol. I. 



