May 1, 1900.] THE TKOPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
teoaliarity of many of the species in the matter of 
flowering, had so long been the bane of the Indian 
agroatologist. Mr. Gamble, in his monograph, gives 
a description and a life-sized figure of every oue of 
the Indian species. Of this monograph (which forms 
a volume of the ' Annals of the Botanic Garden, 
Calcutta V Sir Joseph Hooker writes (at p. 375, vol. 
vii. of hia ' Flora of British India ') : 'It is indis- 
pensable to the student of the tribe by reason of 
its descriptions and admirable plates and analyses.' 
Mr. Gamble has also published a Manual of Indian 
Timbers. A Forest officer who has ever ready to 
help in Botanical work, but who never himself pub- 
lished, was Mr. Gustav Mann, for many years Con- 
servator of Forest in Assam, but now lost to India 
by his premature retirement. Other Forests officers, 
who have done, and are still doing, good botanical 
work in their various spheres, are Messrs. Lace, 
Heinig, Haines, McDonell, Ellis, Oliver, and Upendra 
Nath Kanjilal. Mr. Bourdillon, Conservator of 
Forests in the Travaneore State, is also an enthusi- 
astic Botanist and collector. 
In the Madras Presidency Botanical work has been 
carried on during this second half of the century 
by Noton, Perrottet, Metz, Hohenacher, Schmidt 
(on the Nilgiris^, Bidie, and Lawson. By the efforts 
of the latter two a second public Herbarium was 
established in Madras fthe first having been broken 
np many years ago), and in this second Madras 
Herbarium are to be found many of the collections 
of Wight, besides those of the other Madras Bo- 
tanists just named, 
In the Bombay Presidency the only public Her- 
barium is at Poona. This is of recent origin, and 
owes its existence to the devotion of four men, viz. 
Dr. Theodore Cooke (late Principal of the College of 
Science at Poona), Mr. Marshall.! VVoodrow (until re- 
cently Superintendent of the Garden at Guneshkind 
and jbecturer in Botany in the Poona College), the 
late Mr. Kanade (a native gentleman), and Dr. 
Lisboa (a medical practitioner in the Deccan) — all 
four enthusiastic Botanists. The amount of Govern- 
ment support given to ths Herbarium at Poona has 
hitherto been very inadequate. It is to be hoped 
that greater liberality may be extended to it now 
that a stranger to the Bombay Presidency has just 
been appointed to its chagge in the person of Mr. 
George Gammie, hitherto employed in the Cinchona 
Department of Bengal. 
Reference has already been made to the Botanic 
Gardens at Seharuupore and Calcutta. But to com- 
plete this sketch, arvd especially in order to give a 
clear idea of the apparatus at present existing in 
India for carrying on the study and practice of 
Syatemetic Botany, it is necessary again to refer 
to them. Ongthe retirement of Dr. Jameson in 1872, 
Mr. J. F. Duthie was selected by the Secretary of 
State for India as Superintendent of the Seharuupore 
Garden. Mr. Duthie is still at Seharuupore. Dur- 
ing his tennrs of office he has added to the Herba- 
rium previously existing there (which consisted chiefly 
of the collections of Koyle, Falconer, and Jameson) 
a magnificent collection of his own. Mr. Duthie 
has published a valuable book on the ' Field and 
Garden Crops of the North- Western Provinces,' 
and another on the Grasses of the same area. He 
is now engaged on the preparation of local Floras 
of the North- Western Provinces and of the Punjab. 
The Calcutta Garden at the Date of Sir J. D. 
Hooker's arrival in India in 1848 was under the 
temporary charge of Dr. McClelland, who soon made 
way for Dr. Falconer, who, in 1855, was succeeded 
by D. J. Thomson, and he in turn by Dr. T. Ander- 
son in 1861. Mr. 0. B. Clarke acted as Superintendent 
doriag the interregnum between Dr. Anderson's la- 
mented death in 1870 and my own appointment in 
1871. The Garden and Herbarium at Calcutta have 
been most liberally supported by the Government 
of Bengal. By funds thus supplied the Garden 
has been remodelled and improved ; the Herbarium 
has been housed in an excellent fire-proof building 
(erected in 1883), and the collections of which it 
consists have been greatly increased. The chief items 
of these after acquiations have been the large con- 
tributions of Mr. C. B. Clarke ; of Dr. D. Prain, 
for many years Curator of the Hebarium, and now 
Superintendent of the Garden and of the cinchona 
plantation and factory; of Mr. G. A. Gammie, 
formerly one of the staff of the cinchona plantation 
and now Lecturer on Botany in the College of 
Science at Poona ; of Mr. R. Pantling, Deputy-Su- 
perintendent of the Cinchona plantation, who, in 
addition to dried specimens of the orchids of Sik- 
kim, contributed nearly five hundred drawings, most 
of which have been lithographed as the illstrations 
to a book published in the ' Annals' of the Garden 
as the ' Orchid Flora of Sikkim ; ' of Mr. Kunaler, 
a collector in the Malay Peninsula ; and last, but 
by no means least, of a trained band of aborigines 
of Sikkim named Lepohas who possesses keener powers 
of observation of natural objects, more patience, 
sweeter tempers, and, I am bound in fairness to 
add, dirtier clothes than any race I have ever met 
— black, yellow, or white I In addition to their 
liberal grants to the Garden and Herbarium, the 
Bengal Government, twelve years ago, sanctioned the 
publication, at their expense, as occasion might offer, 
of monographs of important families or genera of 
Indian plants. These monographs are printed in 
quarto, and they are, with one exception, profusely 
illustrated by plates drawn and lithographed by 
Bengali draughtsmen. The series is known as ' The 
Annuals of the Royal Botanic Garden Calcutta,' and 
it has now reached its eighth volume, the ninth being 
i> active preparation. These ' Annals ' have been 
contributed to by Dr. Prain (my successor at the 
Calcutta Garden) by Dr. D. Douglas Cunningham, 
Mr. J. S. Gamble, Mr. R. Pantling, and myself. 
About ten years ago, it occured to the Supreme 
Government of India that it might be to the in- 
terest of Science if the four Botanical establishments 
at Calcutta, Seharuupore, Madras, and Poona ware 
to be formed into a kind of hierarchy under the 
designation of the Botanical Survey of India, 
without removing either the officers of the fonr in- 
stitutions to which they were attached from tha 
financial or general control of the local administra- 
tions within which they are respectively litu^ted, 
the Supreme Government making a small contribu- 
tion of money for the purpose of exploring little-known 
districts and making itself responsible for the coit 
of a publication called ' The Records of the Botani- 
cal Survey.' The four institutions just mentioned 
continue, therefore , to be piad for and controlled 
by the Governments of Bengal, the North-Westem 
Provinces, Mrdras, and Bombay, but their Superin- 
tendents are placed on the cadre of the Botanical 
Survey. The published Records of this Survey now 
extended to twelve numbers, each of which is de- 
voted to an account of the Botany of some parts 
of the enormous and continually expanding are to 
be explored, 
Such, then, is the machinery by which Systematio 
and Geogi'aphical, as distinguished from Boonoitiia 
and Physiological, Botany ia carried on within the 
Indian Empire. But the work done in India itself 
by no means represents all that is being carried .on 
in connection with the elucidation of the Flora of 
the Empire of India. On the contrary the bulk o( 
the work of elaborating the meterials sent from 
India in the shape of dried specimens has always 
been, and must always be, done in a large Her- 
barium ; and until lately no Herbarium in Asia 
has been sufficiently extensive. The last word on 
every difficult taxonomic question must still lie in 
Europe. A very large number of the Herbarium 
specimens collected in India have found their way 
to the various centres of Botanical activity in Europe, 
and have been described by Botanists of many na- 
tionalities. The lion's share of these specimens has 
naturally come to the two great national Herbaria 
in the British Museum and at Kew, but especially 
to the latter. It was in the Kew Herbarium that 
Sir Joseph Hooker and his collaboratenra prepare^ 
