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PREFACE.

whatever may have been their origin, they have now acquired the right to be included in the native Flora, which will thus consist of about 1000 species and 550 genera of phænogamic plants and ferns.

In the following table I have distributed these into the seven following geographical classes or Floras, viz.:—

1. The Tropical Asiatic flora. Plants generally distributed over India and the Archipelago, excepting the dry parched regions of western India. Many of them extend over the South Pacific islands to North Australia in the south-east. Most of them have the coast of south China for their northern limits. A few extend to the isles of Loochoo or Bonin, or even to Japan. A considerable number cross the moister regions of tropical Africa to the west, and not a few, especially amongst the roadside herbs and weeds of cultivation, are common also in many parts of tropical America.

2. The North-east Indian Flora. Plants of the hot, wet, hilly regions of Khasia and Assam, many of them extending westward along the Himalaya and even to some mountains of the Indian Peninsula, but not found in Lower India, nor for the most part in the Malayan Peninsula. Their northern limits will be found somewhere in the unknown regions of east-central Asia and China, a very few extending to Mantchuria and Japan, and perhaps a still smaller number to the Philippines.

3. The South-east Indian Flora. Plants of the Malayan Peninsula and the Archipelago, many of them extending westward to Chittagong and eastern Bengal, several to Ceylon, and a few to tropical Africa, but not known in Central India or the Peninsula. To the eastward many range over the South Pacific islands to North Australia, and reach Hongkong to the northward, probably over the little-known regions of Cochin China and South China.

4. The Archipelago and Pacific Flora. Nearly the same as the last, but with a more eastern range, and not hitherto found within our Indian limits, and probably more nearly connected with Hongkong through the Philippine Islands.

5. The Chinese Flora. Plants hitherto not known to the westward or southward of China, and most of them only from South China. A few however extend northward to Shanghai, Chusan, and Japan, and a very few to Pekin.

6. The Endemic Flora. Plants hitherto only known from the island of Hongkong. Although most if not all of them may be found also in the hilly ranges of the opposite mainland, it is probable that even there they extend only over a limited area.