Flora indica, or, Descriptions of Indian plants : reprinted literatim from Carey's edition of 1832 / by the late William Roxborough.

  • William Roxburgh
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Flora indica, or, Descriptions of Indian plants : reprinted literatim from Carey's edition of 1832 / by the late William Roxborough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    which only a very few are thoroughly known to botanists -: and if fifty years hence we are in a position to draw up an exhaustive Forest Hand-book of them shewing the method of germination of each tree, our Botanic progress in India will have been marvellous. In India, the variety of plants at one level, and in one class of soil, is very much below the tropical luxuriance anticipated by readers at home. In the vast delta of the Ganges, Brahmapootra, and Megiia (omitting the isolated patches of red clay which appear as islands in theMudhopoor jungle, &c.,) Dr. T. Anderson reckoned not more, than 600 indigenous plants. But even without proceeding 500 feet above sea-level, there is an enormous increase in the variety of plants in the Terai jungles which skirt the base of the mountains and hills. For an Indian Hand-book Flora, we want a book that shall contain those 2,000 plants that come in the way of ordinary denizens of Calcutta and Madras. Few- persons comparatively can visit the mountains or collect in the hot jungles at their base : and those who do so (as tea-planters,) and desire to know the wild plants, must use much larger books. Now Roxburgh’s book includes essentially the plains Flora of Calcutta and Madras, with a considerable number of the plants in the Circar Hills up to 2,000 feet, and therefore covers the most useful area for people in general. Also Roxburgh contains an account of all the plants ordinarily culti- vated in India in his day, and we have added wonderfully few since. This enhances greatly the value of Roxburgh to horticulturists, and prevents much disappointment to those who search for s.ome widely-spread plant in a hand-book, and are vexed not to find it because it is omitted as introduced. In hand-books of English plants, the cultivated ones are never included : their number is too great. But the number of cultivated plants in India is very small, so that Roxburgh gets them in easily. In an English garden we can culti- vate most plants of colder countries (except Alpine plants which are troublesome) ’ and also most plants of even the Tropics in our stove-houses. In India it must be recollected that we have no corresponding ice-house conservatories, so that our horticultural efforts except for tropical and subtropical species are greatly circum- scribed. Tropical jungle plants usually require a uniformity of moist heat which is what they do not get in India. At the Calcutta Botanic Garden there are not a dozen foreign trees that can be said to thrive so as to be worth cultivation. And tho number of indigenous trees worth cultivation is small: the Calcutta garden list of trees recommended and furnished for planting by road-sides, &c., did not exceed twenty in all. Probably, ten times this number could be found which would grow luxuriantly in the Sikkim Terai. This statement wrill show that there; is a tolerably clear line between the ordinary Indian Flora and the Flora of the jungles and mountains : the latter Flora is unmanageable in extent, the former is contained in Roxburgh. Roxburgh’s book contains, besides, a small number of the Terai and moun- tain plants from Nepal, Sylhet, and Chittagong, and some plants of Penang, the Moluccas (by which Roxburgh means Malaya) and even the Mauritius. Of these plants, (especially the Molucca ones,) the descriptions are often very short; and the species in Roxburgh are not sufficient in number to form any representation of the • Flora of the countries. In any new edition of Roxburgh, it would be far better to omit all these species and make the book as a Hand-book of the India plains Flora as manageable in point of size as possible. In a reprint intended to be useful for reference, I have thought it best to retain everything. The issue of the present reprint has teen highly approved by my botanic friends in Bengal: but they have very generally expressed disappointment, because I have not added to each species the modern synonym. I might, from the reduction of Roxburgh’s species published by Dr. T. Anderson in the Asiatic .Journal, and some other less sure sources, give the modern synonyms lor Rox- burgh’s species adopted at Kew, or I might give the reductions from my own manuscript list of Roxburgh’s species. But neither plan would be satisfactory to me. gome three years ago I sent a paper home to Dr. Hooker, for publication in
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