From the identity of position and climate, and the apparent similarity of soil between Ceylon and the southern extremity of the Indian peninsula, a corresponding agreement might be expected between their vegetable productions:  and accordingly in its aspects and subdivisions Ceylon participates in those distinctive features which the monsoons have imparted respectively to the opposite shores of Hindustan.  The western coast being exposed to the milder influence of the south-west wind, shows luxuriant vegetation, the result of its humid and temperate climate; whilst the eastern, like Coromandel, has a comparatively dry and arid aspect, produced by the hot winds which blow for half the year.  The littoral vegetation of the seaborde exhibits little variation from that common throughout the Eastern archipelago; but it wants the Phoenix paludosa[1], a dwarf date-palm, which literally covers the islands of the Sunderbunds at the delta of the Ganges.  A dense growth of mangroves[2] occupies the shore, beneath whose overarching roots the ripple of the sea washes unseen over the muddy beach.

[Footnote 1:  Drs. HOOKER and THOMSON, in their Introductory Essay to the Flora of India, speaking of Ceylon, state that the Nipa fruticans (another characteristic palm of the Gangetic delta) and Cycads are also wanting there, but both these exist (the former abundantly), though perhaps not alluded to in any work on Ceylon botany to which those authors had access.  In connection with this subject it may be mentioned, as a fact which is much to be regretted, that, although botanists have been appointed to the superintendence of the Botanic Gardens at Kandy, information regarding the vegetation of the island is scarcely obtainable without extreme trouble and reference to papers scattered through innumerable periodicals.  That the majority of Ceylon plants are already known to science is owing to the coincidence of their being also natives of India, whence they have been described; but there has been no recent attempt on the part of colonial or European botanists even to throw into a useful form the already published descriptions of the commoner plants of the island.  Such a work would be the first step to a Singhalese Flora.  The preparation of such a compendium would seem, to belong to the duties of the colonial botanist, and as such it was an object of especial solicitude to the late superintendent, Dr. Gardner.  But the heterogeneous duties imposed upon the person holding his office (the evils arising from which are elsewhere alluded to), have hitherto been insuperable obstacles to the attainment of this object, as they have also been to the preparation of a systematic account of the general features of Ceylon vegetation.  Such a work is strongly felt to be a desideratum by numbers of intelligent persons in Ceylon, who are not accomplished botanists, but who are anxious to acquire accurate ideas as to the aspects of the flora at different elevations, different seasons, and different quarters of the island; of the kinds of plants that chiefly contribute to the vegetation of the coasts, the plains, and mountains; of the general relations that subsist between them and the flora of the Carnatic, Malabar, and the Malay archipelago; and of the more useful plants in science, arts, medicine, and commerce.