Page:Books from the Biodiversity Heritage Library (IA mobot31753002447982).pdf/13

 NEILGHERRY PLANTS.

I. RANUNCULACEAE.

This is an extensive and beautiful family of plants, many of which, such as the Clematis, Ranunculus, Anemone and Larkspur, rank among the most admired favourites of the flower garden and arbour. Its species abound in Extra-tropical countries, but are of such rare occurrence within the Tropics that, so far as I yet know, there are not above 12 or 14 found, truly indigenous, in the whole of the Indian peninsula, the flora of which amounts to probably not fewer than 5000 species of flowering plants, of all descriptions, or it stands in the ratio of about 1 to every 400 species found within the same limits. The paucity of Ranunculacious plants, within the Tropics, may be further shown by comparing them with the Flora of the whole world: thus, assuming that there are 600 species of Ranunculaceæ, and that there are 80,000 species of flowering Plants, they then stand in proportion of one to every 135 species.

According to published lists, the Indian peninsula, within an elevation of 500 feet above the sea, can only claim one species (Naravelia Zeylanica) and that of rare occurrence within these limits. This plant, which abounds at the foot of the Hills, is an extensively climbing shrub so nearly allied to Clematis as almost to require a Botanist to distinguish them. Such being the case, it naturally follows that the next in succession should be a Clematis, and such in fact is the case, Clematis Gouriana (Nos. 1 and 2) being frequent on the table-land of Mysore and also on the eastern slopes of the Neilgherries, at an elevation of between two and