“It may now be said that the vegetable productions of the island have been very extensively explored, and that the majority of the plants inhabiting it are known to science. The country has been traversed by botanists in many different directions, its highest mountains have been ascended, its lakes and marshes crossed, its forests penetrated, and large collections of plants have been made. About four thousand one hundred species of plants have now been named and described, and I think it may be said with certainty that the great bulk of Madagascarian plants have already been gathered, so that we have now sufficient data to enable us to draw a few general conclusions as to the character and distribution of this very interesting and remarkable flora. Of the four thousand one hundred indigenous plants at present known in Madagascar, about three thousand (or three-fourths of the total flora) are, remarkable to say, only found here. Even of the grasses and rushes, about two-fifths of each order are peculiar to the island. There is one natural order confined to Madagascar, the Chlænaceæ; of ferns more than a third are endemic, and of orchids as much as five-sixths, facts which are sufficient to give a very marked individuality to the character of the flora.” Mr Baron gives the following graphic account of his experiences as a collector of plants:— [Sidenote: BOTANISING IN MADAGASCAR] “Botanising in Madagascar, as those who have travelled in wild and uncivilised regions in other parts of the world will easily believe, is a totally different experience from botanising in England. Your collecting materials are carried by a native, who may be honest, or not, in which latter case the drying paper will begin gradually and mysteriously to disappear, and the leather straps with which the presses are tightened will, one by one, be quietly appropriated. For a Malagasy bearer has a special weakness for leather straps, they being largely used for belts, so that both for the sake of your own comfort and the honesty of the men, the sooner you dispense with them the better. As for the dried plants themselves, they are secure from all pilfering; for of what possible use or value they can be, it puzzles the natives to conceive. You might leave your collection in a village for a whole month, and you would find on your return it was still intact. If, after a day’s journey, you sit down in a hut to change the sheets of paper containing the specimens, the villagers will be sure to come and, standing round in a circle, gaze at you in mute astonishment turning over the plants so well known to them. After a few minutes’ silent gaze, there will perhaps be a sudden outburst of amused laughter, or it may be a little whispering, which, if it were audible, would be something to this effect: ‘Whatever in the world is the man doing?’ or, ‘What strange creatures these white men are!’