Page:Madras Journal of Literature and Science, series 1, volume 6 (1837).djvu/498

470 many others endowed with the most valuable medicinal properties, of which I have received, from really competent observers, accounts so satisfactory, that they could not fail to produce a strong feeling of regret, that the narrators were unqualified to give me more perfect information regarding them. Specimens of such, gathered when in flower, and dried between the leaves of a book, or a few sheets of paper, in the manner detailed in a former communication, might easily be transmitted from any part of India, if packed between the boards of an old book, or in stiff paper, and prove of the greatest value, especially if accompanied with notes detailing their uses, and mode of preparation; and as, in the composition of these notes, no scientific knowledge is required, I trust I shall be favoured with many such communications.

Botany has hitherto spread with tardy steps among us, the catalogue of Indian botanists having never, at any one time, comprised more than a few names: her most palmy days having undoubtedly embraced the concluding years of the last, and first quarter of the present century; during which, Koenig, Roxburgh, Rottler, Klein, Heyne and Buchanan Hamilton flourished.

When we contemplate the impediments which these truly great men had to surmount in arriving at the eminence they justly attained in their favourite pursuit, partly originating m the imperfection of books treating of Indian plants, and partly from the engrossing duties they had to perform, the intervals of which, only, they could devote to botany, we cannot too much admire their perseverance and devotion to science; while they afford a striking example of how much maybe done by a skilful division of our time, and a careful appropriation of our leisure to scientific pursuits.

While we thus admire their industry in obtaining knowledge, we equally regret that, with the exception of the illustrious Roxburgh, leisure sufficient was not granted to any one of them to leave a comprehensive written record of the extent of his acquirements, for the benefit of succeeding labourers in the same field: hence, we are constrained to acquire much of our knowledge of Indian plants, in the same roundabout way that they did, that is, from general systems of Botany (greatly enriched by them, certainly), in place of local Florae.

These systems, embracing as they do the vegetation of the whole globe, are necessarily very concise, and the species so briefly described, as not seldom to render it next to impossible to identify the plant from its specific character. One object of the present work is to remedy, in