PREFACE. 



Before the completion of Sir Joseph Hooker's great book 

 'Flora of British India,' the only comprehensive work on Indian 

 Botany was that of Dr. W. Roxburgh. But it was long 

 out of print and the Revd. Dr. Carey's edition of that im- 

 portant work sold in London for something like £5. The late 

 Mr. C. B. Clarke of the Educational Department of Bengal, after- 

 wards Inspector of Schools in Assam, conferred a great boon on 

 students of Indian Botany by bringing out a reprint of that work 

 in 1874 and pricing it so low as 5 rupees only. Unfortunately, 

 it is now out of print. When more than 25 years ago, I com- 

 menced the study of Indian Medicinal Plants, I had to work 

 with this well known book. So the reference to Roxburgh 

 throughout the present work is to the pages of that reprint. 



I also experienced great difficulty in identifying the plants 

 for not possessing illustrations of most of them. It is almost 

 impossible for a person of moderate resources to provide himself 

 with all the illustrated works on Indian Botany, especially as a 

 good many of them, having become out of print, are procurable 

 only at fabulous prices. I found that for a proper study of the 

 subject there was a great want of a work containing illustrations, 

 botanical descriptions, vernacular names and uses of the medi- 

 cinal plants of this country. It was to supply this want to some 

 extent that the present work was undertaken. In this under- 

 taking I was very fortunate to have secured the co-operation of 

 the late lamented Lieutenant-Colonel Kanhoba Ranchoddas 

 Kirtikar, F. L. S., I. M. S., a botanist of great repute, who pos- 

 sessed a very rich library of Botany and other sciences allied to 

 it. Himself a good draughtsman, he had also employed an able 

 artist of Bombay to draw and paint from nature, plants of eco- 

 nomic importance. The faithfulness of these drawings is 

 admired by those who have seen them. Colonel Kirtikar very 

 readily allowed me to publish them with this work. He also 

 kindly undertook to prepare the botanical descriptions of the 



