No. 31.— 1885.] 



CEYLON FLOBA. 



141 



large herbaria, and full libraries: without these advantages 

 it is often impossible to come to decision on doubtful 

 points.* 



The list contains about 3,250 species, of which the odd 

 250 may be reckoned to consist of the ferns and their allies, 

 and the remaining 3,000 of the Phanerogams or Flowering- 

 Plants. In the remarks and comparisons which I now 

 proceed to make ? it is in general these latter — the Pha- 

 nerogams—only that are taken into consideration. 



2. Now the first thing to be observed with regard to these 

 3,000 species is that a very considerable number of them are 

 no more natives of Ceylon than are the great majority of 

 the Members of this Society. Like them they are aliens, 

 settled colonists or denizens, or casual waifs and strays from 

 other lands. This fact is always rather a surprize to those 

 who see the vegetation of this country for the first time ; 

 for many of the plants which seem to them most character- 

 istic really come under the category of foreigners. Such 

 familiar trees as the Cashew Nut, the Mango, the Gluava, 

 the Country Almond (Terminalia Catappa), the Blimbing, 

 the Papaw, and even the Horse-radish tree ( Moringa ), the 

 Jak,and the Tamarind, are all of exotic origin, and introduced 

 by man. Many of them are, no doubt, very ancient introduc- 

 tions, and from no greater distances than the adjacent Indian 

 Peninsula, as the Jak, or the Malay Peninsula, as the 

 Arecanut Palm ; but many were brought from the W. Indies 

 or Tropical America, much more recently. So, too, with the 

 common garden plants and weeds which line our roadsides 

 and cover waste ground ; the Opuntia or Cactus, the 

 Sensitive plant ( Mimosa pudica ), the yellow Turnera, the 

 Castor-oil plant, the Marvel of Peru, the blue Vervain 

 (Stachytarpheta ), the white yellow or orange Thunbergia 

 alata, the great white Trumpet-flower ( Datura suaveolens), 

 the pink or white Vinca, the Temple Tree (Plumeria 

 acutifolia), the Allamanda, and many others ; not to mention 

 the too familiar Lantana and the nearly as abundant and 

 much handsomer " Sun-flower" ( Tithonia diver sifolla). All 



* Notes on the more important of the additions, and descriptions of 

 the new species, will be found in my paper published in the " Journal 

 of Botany" for 1885, commencing in the May number (p. 138). 



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