CATALOGUE OF NON-HERBACEOUS PHANEROGAMS 
CULTIVATED IN THE ROYAL BOTANIC 
GARDEN, CALCUTTA. 
BY A. T. GAGE. 
PART I. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The primary stimulus to attempt a compilation of the non- 
herbaceous flowering plants cultivated in the Royal Botanic Garden 
Calcutta, was the writer’s ignorance and the not very exact knowledge 
of the other Garden officers of its contents. There were also other 
considerations that appeared to justify the attempt. The numerous 
letters received from within and from without India requesting 
copies of a catalogue of the plants cultivated, or seeking the information 
that should be contained in such a catalogue, indicate that the desire 
for a list of the plants cultivated in the Garden is not confined to the 
Garden staf. 2 
Doubtless a botanical garden guiltless of a published or accessible 
list of its contents affords a considerable amount of both physical and 
mental exercises both to its officers and to such visitors as entertain 
an intelligent interest in its vegetation, but it is more than doubtful 
whether the chief function of a collection of living plants—apart from 
the spectacle they present—is merely to provide ground for such 
exercises, the benefits of which are so disproportionate to the time 
and energy consumed thereby. The desirability of as far as possible 
having every plant in the living collection correctly named and, 
though not necessarily labelled, yet so marked as to make the finding 
of both a plant itself and its name a matter of no or little more 
difficulty than a similar procedure with regard to a dried specimen 
in the Herbarium needs no demonstration. 
The last published—as apart from merely printed —catalogue of the 
» Garden isa small pamphlet of 12 pages, drawn up by the Curator 
of the Garden in 1871, in which merely a list of names is given. 
Previous to 1871 there had been a succession of catalogues, compiled 
at different times, from Roxburgh’s Hortus Bengalensis published in 
1814 to Anderson’s Catalogue issued in 1865. In the second (Sys- 
oe B 
