PREFACE.
vii
century in the cellars of the India House and in public and private herbaria. It is a pioneer work, which, besides enabling botanists to name with some accuracy a host of Indian plants, may, I hope, serve two higher purposes, to facilitate the compilation of local Indian floras and monographs of the large Indian genera ; and to enable the phytographer to discuss the problems of the distribution of plants from the point of view of what is perhapS the richest, and is certainly the most varied botanical area on the surface of the globe, and one which, in a greater degree than any other, contains representatives of the floras of both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
J. D. Hooker.
- November, 1897.
