FIRST BOOK

OF

INDIAN BOTANY.

OF

INDIAN BOTANY.

BY

DANIEL OLIVER, F.R.S., F.L.S.

KEEPER OF THE HERBARIUM AND LIBRARY OF THE ROYAL Gardens, Kew, and
PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.

LONDON:

R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINters,

BREAD STREET HILL.

PREFACE.

THIS little book is, in substance, my

"Lessons in

Elementary Botany" adapted for use in India.

But in preparing it, I have had in view the want, often felt, of some handy résumé of Indian Botany, which might be serviceable not only to residents in India, but also to any one about to proceed thither, desirous of getting some preliminary idea of the Botany of that country.

I might have entitled the book "Illustrations of Indian Natural Orders of Plants;" but as the same chapters, with necessary alteration, on the Elements of Structural and Physiological Botany are prefixed to the systematic part which I originally drew up for my previous work, the whole thing seems to me tolerably suited to serve as a "First Book of Indian Botany."

My chief difficulty has been in the selection of suitable Types to illustrate the Natural Orders on the plan of the late Professor Henslow. In a book for use in Britain there is no difficulty on this head, for so many plants are pretty uniformly dispersed over our limited area, that nearly every