146 THE VEGETATION OF THE DISTRICTS OF 
employed as Voigt intended it to be, as a guide to the plants in 
cultivation in gardens in and about Calcutta, is not only the best, but, 
in the estimation of the native inhabitants of our districts, the only 
guide that is of the slightest use. This, however, is less because of any 
virtue in the arrangement or any merit in the scientific matter, than 
because the native names given are not only selected with much 
care and critical insight but are given in their original characters. 
Perhaps the greatest defect in the work is that it goes too far 
and deals not only, as its title implies, with the plants cultivated in 
the two gardens at Calcutta and Serampore but includes, as Masters 
in his venture proposed, the indigenous plants as well. Its chief 
use is undoubtedly as a guide to the exotic plants cultivated in the 
neighbourhood of Calcutta ; in this respect it still is, and will long 
continue to be, invaluable. As a guide to the non-exotic plants of 
the neighbourhood it is much less useful ; indeed, as Hooker and 
Thomson say, it is not in this respect suitable as a work of 
reference. 
In 1862 an attempt was made to utilise the information regarding 
the indigenous species enumerated in Voigt by R. Anderson in 
a Catalogue of Plants indigenous in the neighbourhood of Calcutta 
with directions for the examination and preserving of plants - 1 This 
compilation consists of a bare list of the plants given by Voigt as 
natives of Serampore with the names brought more or less up to date, 
but the list is badly printed and abounds with uncorrected printer’s 
errors. Moreover, it does not give the vernacular names so carefully 
collected by Voigt, so that it is of no practical use except as a check 
list. The only valuable part of the pamphlet is the portion dealing 
with the examination and preservation of specimens which is taken 
from the introduction to the Colonial Floras published by the authority 
of Government. The number of natural families given is 86, of 
genera 327, of species 738. 
In the present paper an attempt is made to do more thoroughly 
what was attempted by Anderson. It has not, however, appeared 
feasible to define the neighbourhood of Calcutta more rigidly than 
to consider this as including, to the east of the Hughli, the whole of 
the 24-Pergunnahs in which Calcutta lies, and on the west of the 
Hughli, the two districts of Howrah — where we have Shibpur and the 
Royal Botanical Garden, and Hughli — which includes Serampore. 
The list therefore enumerates all species hitherto collected within 
these three districts. But the district of the 24-Pergunnahs includes the 
Western Sundribuns where we have typical mangrove-swamp forests; 
1 Calcutta : Bishop’s College Press : 1862. 
