INTRODUCTION 



The object of tMs Avork is restricted and is entirely practical. It is 

 intended for Foresters and others, who may wish to make themselves 

 acquainted with the immense variety of trees, shrubs, climbers, bamboos and 

 palms in the British Indian Empire. Ceylon and the Malay Peninsula are 

 not included, and the book is limited to flowering plants ; tree-ferns I have 

 not been able to deal with. In this study the first step necessarily is to 

 determine the name of a plant met w^ith, and my principal aim has been to 

 facilitate this difficult operation. To some extent I am told this has been 

 accomplished for a portion of the Empire by the Forest Flora of North' West 

 and Central India, which was commenced by the late Dr. Lindsay Stewart 

 and completed by me in 1874. 



Since I commenced the work about eight years ago, my hope has been that 

 this book might facilitate the preparation of local Forest Floras, small portable 

 handbooks, giving an account of the arborescent vegetation of limited areas, 

 provinces or districts of the British IMian Empire. This hope has been 

 strengthened by the publication in 1901 by Rai Sahib Upendranath Kanjilal 

 of that excellent handbook, the Forest Flora of the School Circle, in what 

 are now called the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, The author was 

 a pupil of Mr, J. F. Duthie, who taught systematic botany at the Dehra 

 Dun Forest School from 1881 to 1902. Kanjilal has told me that his work 

 has been greatly facilitated by the Forest Flora of IsTorth-West and Cen- 

 tral India, but his book is full of original observations, made by him 

 during his many years' work in the forests attached to the Imperial 

 Forest School. Following the example set by him, I trust that tbe local 

 Forest Floras of the future will be based mainly upon the study of the trees 

 and shrubs as they grow in the forest, and hence as a matter of course they 

 must be written in India. 



The attainment of my principal object, to facilitate the identification of 

 trees and shrubs, will I hope be furthered by the illustrations which I have 

 been able to give of 201 species. I had hoped to induce Miss M. Smith, 

 the accomplished Botanical Artist at Kew, to undertake this work. Unfor- 

 tunately she had not sufficient leisure, and was only able to give me two 

 figures in Anonacem, For the greater part of the remainder I have had 

 the good fortune to secure the services of Dr. Eoland Anheisser of Cologne, 

 and I feel sure that those who may use this book will be grateful to him for 

 the help which his illustrations will give them. They increase the bulk 

 of the book, but I have gladly given up over 60 pages to them. It will be 

 noticed that no illustrations are given of trees which may be supposed to 

 be generally known, such as Teak, Sal, Sissoo, Deodar. 



The present book does not claim to be a Forest Flora, such as we have in 

 Europe, giving all that is known regarding the internal structure, the 

 marketable products, the mode and rate of growth, the biological features, 

 the sylvicultural requirements, the treatment in the forest, and tlie insect 

 and fungoid enemies of the different species. Such a work for the whole 

 of the British Indian Empire would fill several volumes and could not 

 be written at present, France has an exceedingly rich and varied flora, 

 and yet Mathieu's admirable Flore Foresti^re de la France (the last edition 

 by Fliehe), only deals with 397 species, while in the present volume 

 over 4,400 species are described. 



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