HL'GHLI -HOWR AH AND THE 24- PER GUNN AHS. 
*'47 
at the same time the most westerly sub-division (Goghat) of the 
Hughli district, lies beyond the Dwarkeswar river and outside the limits 
of the deltaic alluvium on which Calcutta is built, so that its flora is to a 
considerable extent that characteristic of drier districts like Bard wan 
and Birbhum. On either side of the river Hughli therefore we find, 
within the districts with which we have to deal, types of vegetation 
that are very distinctive, each including a number of species that are 
not to be met with in the immediate vicinity of Calcutta. But the 
actual number of species of each class, as compared with the total 
number of species in the list, is not very great and it is hardly worth 
while, for the sake of excluding them, to have recourse to the 
unnatural step of proposing arbitrary boundary lines for the * neigh- 
bourhood ’ of Calcutta. 
In drawing up the systematic list an enumeration has been made 
of all the flowering plants hitherto collected in our districts and of all 
the cryptogams, except the Fungi, of which named specimens are 
preserved in the Calcutta herbarium. It is, however, certain that, 
except as regards the Pteridophyta and Bryophyta, these crypto- 
gamic lists are quite incomplete. As regards the Fungi, though the 
Calcutta material is fairly extensive, it has been so inadequately 
studied that a list of its named species would serve little useful 
purpose. 
In the case of the Phanerogams all plants that are certainly wild 
in the districts are included. That a plant is wild in these districts 
is, however, no indication that it is indigenous. There is a sense in 
which, except perhaps in the Goghat sub-division of the Hughli 
district, no species can be indigenous in our area ; the whole or 
nearly the whole tract consists of Jand laid down by the great river 
Ganges or its distributaries, and therefore all the plants growing 
on its surface must be immigrants from elsewhere. Even, however, 
if we admit this to be the case, the fact is not altered that a 
considerable number of species, some of which have certainly 
been originally deliberately introduced, (. Bryophyllum calycinum y 
Turnera ulmifolia , Opuntia Dillenii l P assiflora suberosa are 
examples), though not even originally natives of India, are now 
absolutely established as wild plants in our area. But besides wdld 
plants, whether native in the sense that they may have spread to these 
alluvial tracts from the adjacent higher ground of West Bengal or 
that they may have been brought by ocean currents, by rivers, by 
winds, or by living creatures other than man, the list includes all the 
crops cultivated in fields or gardens in the districts ; and such trees 
or shrubs or herbs as are to be found in native gardeds, or in village- 
