William Alexander Talbot
Published: 2017-12-11
Total Pages: 420
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Excerpt from The Trees, Shrubs, and Woody-Climbers of the Bombay Presidency The first edition of this work was published early in 1894, eight years ago. Since then a number of trees, shrubs and climbers, new to the Bombay presidency and some new to science, have. Been discovered and included herein. Additional matter about distribution, bark, woods and economic products, along with a large number of vernacular (principally Kanarese) names, has been also added. At the same time numerous typographical and other errors have been as carefully as possible eliminated. The synopsis of Natural Orders and the keys to the genera and Species have been recast and arranged so that the reader may now be enabled to more easily determine the names of the trees, &c., found in the Bombay forests. This edition, entirely re - written and revised, con tains a fairly correct list of the indigenous ligneous vegetation of the presidency, and it may reasonably be hoped that by the addition of the botanical descriptions of the species and of the more important sylvicul tural and physiological facts relating to the principal indigenous timber trees, the next edition will expand into a handy Bombay Forest Flora. Our limited knowledge of the life histories of the large number of plants included in an Indian local forest flora as well as the small number of botanical workers in 'the field, effectually prevent the writing of a work like _mathieu's Flore Forestiere, de la France, a model of its kind. A hand-book on the lines of Brandis' Flora of N orth-wes'tern and Central India, with a companion volume of convenient sized plates of a large proportion of the species described, is, however, within our reach and hopes of practical accomplishment. The synonomy and citations are, as in the first edition, for the most part restricted to Indian forest literature and to Sir J. Hooker's Flora of British India, which latter work was not completed when the first edition of this book was published. In conclu sion, the author has to thank the Superintendents of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Sibpore, Calcutta, and the Curators of the Kew Establishment for their ever ready and kind assistance in naming critical and other species of plants referred to them. He also wishes to gratefully acknow ledge the kindness of the Bombay Government in allowing this book to be printed at public expense. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.