OF CENTRAL ArniCA. 2G1
not already known as natives of other parts of equinoctial Africa.
A complete catalogue of the herbarium, such as I have now described it, even if the number and condition of the specimens admitted of its being satisfactorily given, woukl be of ])ut little importance, ^vith reference to the geo- graphy of plants. Catalogues of such collections, if drawn up hastily, and from imperfect materials, as must here have been the case, arc indeed calculated rather to injure than advance this department of the science, which is still in its infancy, and whose pro- gress entirely depends on the scrupulous accuracy of its statements. To produce confidence in these statements, and in the deductions founded on them, it should in every case distinctly appear that, in establishing the identity of the species enumerated, due attention has been paid to the original authorities on which they depend, and, im Avlierever it is possible, a comparison actually made with authentic specimens.
In the account which I am now to give of the present collection, I shall confine myself to a slight notice of the remarkable known plants it contains, to characters or short descriptions of the more interesting new species, and to some observations on such of the plants as, though already published, have cither been referred to genera to which they appear to me not to belong, or whose characters re- quire essential alteration.
In proceeding on this plan, I shall ado[)t the order fol- lowed in the botanical appendix to Captain Tuckey's ' Ex- pedition to the River Congo.' And as there will seldom be room for remarks on the geographical distribution of the species I have to notice, 1 shall chiefly endeavour to make my observations respecting them of some interest to systematic botanists.
Crijcifer/E. Fifteen species belonging to this fcunily exist in the collection, one of which only a})pearstobeunde- scribed, and of this the specimens are so imj)crfect that its genus cannot with certainty be determined. Of those already published, however, the generic characters of
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