356 THE RETURN FROM INDIA 
Part of the plan was to find trustworthy speciahsts to 
deal with certam Orders. Thus Hooker writes in July 1852 
to Munro/ the soldier-botanist, the * wonderful grass-man,' 
who had been arranging the grasses in the Kew Herbarium, 
and who was keen enough to send home a collection of plants 
from the Crimea in the intervals of fighting : 
Bentham has already taken to preparing the Legumi- 
nosae Indicae. We shall ourselves commence "^-ith Ranun- 
culaceae as soon as the collections are arranged, and beat 
about for assistance amongst good and true friends, print- 
ing for them at once, offering them copies for their labour, 
and selections from the complete collections in order of 
the extent and value of their contributions. What do 
you say to a Graminologia Indica -mih. short, terse generic 
and specific characters, synonyms and a summary of the 
Geog. distrib. of the species, to be printed, pubhshed, and 
distributed gratis, to a certain extent, by ourselves as 
* Munro's Gram. Ind.,' giving you 50 copies, and after dis- 
tributing to all deserving public and private estabhshments, 
putting the remainder into a publisher's hands to sell ? 
Such is our present idea of proceeding. Will you kindly 
think the subject over and offer any suggestions, not so much 
with reference to your doing the Grasses, as to the general 
principle ? Great progress might thus be made towards a 
Flora Indica, by the serial pubhcation of large Nat. Ords. 
and groups of small do. complete in themselves. We shall 
be very careful how we trust the materials to authors we 
have not satisfactory experience of. 
But its completion was a task beyond even such energetic 
men. Time and opportunity were too scanty. Hooker was 
deep in other work. Thomson was bound to return to India. 
Enthusiasm did its best, and he had plunged eagerly into 
work, Hghtly proposing as a side occupation to index the 
Kew Herbarium, to Hooker's grim amusement. He was 
wholly in sympathy with the views of his fellow-worker. 
^ William Munro (1818-80) saw active service in the Sikh war and the 
Crimea, and held the West Indian command from 1870 to 1876. Diiring the 
many years his regiment was in India he studied botany, becoming the chief 
authority on the Grasses. He did not live to complete his general monograph 
of the whole order of Gramineae undertaken after his retirement. 
