PREFACE. 
The native "names whicli occur in the following pages are collected from 
various botanical works, reports and treatises on the products and materia 
medica of the East, catalogues, memoirs, journals, &c.,, a list of which 
follows this preface.. It is believed that all works of acknowledged im¬ 
portance, in which the native names of Indian plants and products 
occur, have been consulted. 
It has been considered advisable to reprint the names, whether verna¬ 
cular or scientific, exactly as the authors of the various works from which 
they have been collected wrote them. This will account for the apparent 
anomaly of the same word occurring under different forms of spelling. 
Indeed,, much of the* practical utility of this work would have been 
sacrificed by the adoption of a standard orthography,. 
Immediately after the native name a contraction in italics represents 
the language from which the word is derived, or the locality in which it 
is employed. Some native* names of plants in the East, as in all other 
parts of the world, are purely local; hence to have appended, only the 
name of the language in such cases would have been insufficient.. When¬ 
ever authors have indicated any particular locality in which a native name 
is employed, such locality has therefore been inserted. 
It will be observed that no. authority for the botanical name follows 
it, as is usual in most works. This omission is intentional, since the name 
of the author using it and a reference to his work follows the name, and 
he accepts the responsibility of that name, which, however, may not in 
all cases represent the identical plant instanced by the authority he may 
quote. 
The authorities referred to by contractions in italics after the scientific 
name are detailed in the following list. The numbers refer to those 
adopted by the authors in their respective works wherever such author 
( 3272 .) 
