1840.] 



Wzghfs Illustrations of Indian Botany, 



little use to commence extraction, for we should be tempted to go on 

 until we had transferred the whole to our pages. The object of this 

 notice is to do all in our power for the extension of the study of Botany 

 through the assistance of Dr. Wight's admirable publications, of which 

 we confidently anticipate an extended circulation; for we are grieved 

 and astonished to find from the author's preface that it needs a " conti- 

 nuation of support from the public, without which it is impossible his 

 contracted means can bring it to a close, as it has already involved an 

 outlay so much beyond its returns, that, but for the liberal aid of 

 Government, in patronizing it and its fellow, the Icones, to the extent 

 of fifty copies each, both must long ago have ceased to exist." 



" In the Preface'to the Prodromus Floree Peninsulas Indiee Orientalis, 

 will be found a brief historical sketch of the rise, progress and present 

 state of Indian Botany. From that sketch it will be perceived that, 

 until the publication of that volume, every work since the time of Lin- 

 naeus, with the excepton of DeCandoUe's Systema Vcgetahilium and 

 Prodromus Systematis, treating of Indian plants, was arranged accord* 

 ing to the Linneean sexual or artificial system. It has naturally fol- 

 lowed that nearly all those who had devoted their leisure to the inves- 

 tigation of Indian plants have adopted that system, and find the study 

 of them according to their natural affinities often exceedingly difficult, 

 if not actually irksome, even though the advantages of the latter over 

 the former method so greatly preponderate as scarcely to admit of any 

 comparison being instituted between the two. Instigated, therefore, 

 partly by a long cherished wish to promote the extension of Botanical 

 pursuits by diffusing a knowledge of species, partly by the desire of 

 lessening to others the difficulties which beset my own path when pass- 

 ing from the one method of study to the other; but principally in the 

 hope of being able to show that, for the attainment of a correct and 

 comprehensive knowledge of the properties and uses of plants, whether 

 as food, medicine, or in the arts, a much more direct and certain method 

 is, through an enlarged and philosopical acquaintance with their natural 

 affinities, than by the most laborious, but empirical search for individual 

 properties, when entered upon without any such guide as the knowledge 

 of affinities supplies to our researches. To elucidate these affinities, and 

 at the same time to furnish the Indian Botanist with the means of iden- 

 tifying species, this work and its companion, the " Figures of Indian 

 Plants," were undertaken, and, even at their present early stage, the 

 author has reason to believe with much advantage towards the accom- 

 plishment of this design. 



