Hotel des Anglais 
San Remo 
Italy 
5 th, January 1902 
* 
Sir, 
r • 
I have the honour .t.o acknowledge the receipt of ycur 
letter marginally noted concerning the publication of m y Materials for 
a Flora of the Malay Peninsula in the Journal of the Asiatic Society 
« * 
of Bengal* 
It is,as you remark in your letter under reply,true that the ori 
-ginal intention of your Government was to have a complete Flora of the 
British Malayan Provinces published in two volumes by Mess: L.Reeve&Co j 
4 *< 
of London. The work of preparing this projected Flora was,as you are 
aware, undertaken by Sir Joseph 3). Hooker and myself conjointly* When 
howevep we gave hope of the rrzr&Ty completion of such a work,neither <f> 
of us had realised how very inperfectly the plants of the Malayan Pen-' 
insula,and especially those of its central mountain range,had been,up 
■to that time,collected,it explained in my, letter to you/ dated 26th 
December 1900, Sir Joseph Hooker found that he would be unable to take 
. any part in it and he dissociated himself from the undertaking leaving 
me to carry it out single-handed. 
I had not been long at work before I found out how incomplete the 
« 
collections on which I had to work really were,and I suggested to Sir 
Joseph that,instead either of hurrying on the publication of a Flora 
which(being founded in imperfect collections of plants)must necessari¬ 
ly be imperfect,or if waiting until a Floras in completed collections 
should be published in its .entirely, I should print,from time to time, 
in the-Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (which had consented to 
receive .them), such portions of a work founded in the collections in ha 
hand as I might be able to prepare. This proposal met with the entire 
approval of Sir Joseph Hooker and was accepted by. His Excellency the 
Governor of the Straits Settlements(Sir Oecil Smith I think.)The pub¬ 
lication of the series of papers entitled Materialsfor a Flora ,pf_bhe 
rv) 
> 
ri 
0? 
Malay Penninsula was therefore begun, and, as you are aware,.twelve paper.? 
< _ i i.. i - 1 ■* m 
of this series have up to date been printed. The of this series 
sufficiently indicates its nature. It is not issued as a Flora,but as 
Materials for a Flora. It was hoped that by this piece-meal publication 
the work of collecting dried specimens of plants of the,provinces con¬ 
cerned would he stimulated so that in time a collection of specimens 
