From a draft found by H.H.
The Camp,
Sunningdale.
(26 ? Dec. 1899) My dear Strachey,*1
I have digested the letters herewith returned -- they suggest two chief points for consideration, and sundry minor:--
The chief are, 1) whether the list should be printed without the species of your own collecting being indicated by their numbers and then "Hall--marked" by a comparison of the specimens with the types of Fl. B. Ind. --2) Whether the list is sufficiently brought up to date.
1. I agree with Clarke and Dyer, that your own collections should be indicated by their original numbers and that their nomenclature be authentic. The omission of your own numbers takes away all my interest in the work, it emasculates it. My great wish has always been to see your list published as being the first serious attempt ever made to col--lect and determine the elements of the Flora of a section of the Himalaya at all elevations from the plains to Tibet. In this you succeeded, now just half a century ago. Were no other list ever to appear, that, with its appended observations, would still give the only satisfactory view of the vegetation of the Himalaya as obtainable from one section.

From it might be drawn for the first time an adequate sketch of the vegetation of the three Himalayan regions, their relations to one another, and to the Flora of Europe, of the Western, Eastern and Northern area, and of S. India and Malacca; of the proportions of the great groups of phaenogams (as Monocotyledons to Dicotyledons) in each region; and it formed a basis for comparison with the Flora of other sections of the Himalaya.

It is hence of great historic value. You have merged it in a more extended list. I should not object to that were your collection properly indicated therein. The only admissable substitute for the numbers would be a column with "St. & W." opposite every species gathered by yourselves. As to Hall--marking, your nomenclature, that I take it has been done if (as I suppose you have) you have adopted (for the species, the names) the nomenclature of Fl. B. Ind., during the compilation of which all your collection came under review. There may be some names to reconsider, and some genera to revise with recent monographs, to which latter I shall allude hereafter, but this cannot involve serious labor.
I agree with Clarke in the necessity of indicating in the new list alterations of named adopted in the old. These cannot be very numerous, and could be relegated to footnotes or to an appendix of altered names.
2. As to the list being brought up to date, that depends on how far Duthie has kept up to date in what you have added from him. There are monographs of genera subsequent to Fl. B. I. that I hope Duthie has not overlooked, as Prain's monograph of Indian Pedicularis and Corydalis. Of Pedicularis he has 17 Kumaun species. His Kumaun is Sutlej to Karnal (?), and may include species not in your Kumaun; but 14 certainly are -- of which 4 have names altered from Fl. B. I. -- Of Corydalis he has 50 Indian species against 24 in

Fl. B. I.! I have not exhausted the Kumaun.
I do not agree with Clarke that you should wait for, or be deterred from printing by any forthcoming work of Duthie's. I agree with you that your list will be of great value to Kumaun collectors, and despite its imperfections, to Botanists.
One more point: I protest emphatically against your proposal of confining the issue to 150 copies distributing a few and sending the rest to Dehra. Such privately issued works are nightmares, sneaks, intolerable nuisances. Their importance gets exaggerated, and they are vainly sought for, and are cited by those who have them, though inaccessible to others. Print 500 and put them on sale by commission -- the sale will more than cover the expense of the extra 300 copies.
In the matter of what I think should be done before printing the list, if you approve, I do hope you will let me undertake it. I have just completed Trimen's Hand book of the Ceylon Flora, and except Bot. Mag. and a review of Indian Impatiens have no botanical work in hand. I could not do much until some warmth and light returns, but would be getting up my subject.
Endnotes
1. Sir Richard Strachey (1817--1908). Scientist and administrator in India; studied botany under Major E. Madden; in 1848 visited Tibet with the botanist J.E. Winterbottom collecting over 2000 botanical specimens of which 32 new species and varieties bear Strachey's name. Elected Fellow of the Royal Society 1854.
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