360 THE KETUEN FROM INDIA 
labour saw the completion of the Flora of British India. This, 
he notes with regret, was conceived on a more restricted scale. 
It ran to seven volumes, pubHshed between 1872-97, contain- 
ing but 6000 pages of letterpress dealing with 16,000 species. 
In the preface Hooker describes it as a pioneer work, and 
necessarily incomplete. But he hopes it may 
help the phytographer 'to discuss problems of distribution 
of plants from the point of view of what is perhaps the 
richest, and is certainly the most varied botanical area on 
the surface of the globe. 
To complete the history of his systematic work on Indian 
Botany, let me quote from Professor Bower. 
Scarcely was this great Y\'ork ended when Dr. Trimen 
died. He left the Ce'ylon Flora, on which he had been 
engaged, incomplete. Three volumes were already pub- 
lished, but the fourth was far from finished, and the fifth 
hardly touched. The Ceylon Government apphed to 
Hooker, and though he was now eighty years of age, he 
responded to the call. The completing volumes were issued 
in 1898 and 1900. This was no mere raking over afresh the 
materials worked already into the Indian Flora. For Ceylon 
includes a strong Malayan element in its vegetation. It 
has, moreover, a very large number of endemic species, and 
even genera. This last floristic work of Sir Joseph may be 
held fitly to round off his treatment of the Indian Peninsula. 
His last contribution to its botany was in the form of a 
' Sketch of the Vegetation of the Indian Empire,' including 
Ceylon, Burma, and the Malay Peninsula. It was written 
for the Imperial Gazetteer, at the request of the Government 
of India. No one could have been so well qualified for this 
as the veteran who had spent more than half a century in 
preparation for it. It was pubhshed in 1904, and forms 
the natural close to the most remarkable study of a vast 
and varied Flora that has ever been carried through by one 
ruhng mind. 
Such was the main channel of the enterprise ; but the 
work overflowed into many subsidiary channels. Witness 
Hooker's numerous contributions on Indian subjects at this 
