m 



90 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY, 



PRINCIPALLY OF THE SOUTHERN PARTS OF THE 



PENINSULA. 



By Richard Wight, M. D., &c. &c. 



[In this country, and, indeed, throughout Europe, there has 

 very lately been the greatest interest excited in what relates 

 to the Botany of our Eastern possessions. For a long series 

 of years, the East India Company have, with a liberality 

 which does them the highest honour, manifested a disposition 

 to foster this delightful science, well aware how much we 

 owe to the vegetable creation for our food, our clothing, our 

 ships, our buildings, and innumerable articles connected with 

 the arts, domestic economy, and medicine; so that commerce 

 might in consequence be materially benefitted by an increased 

 knowledge of the vegetable productions of India. 



In the year 1788, we learn from the excellent Dr. Carey's 

 Introduction to the Hortus Benghalensis, that a Botanic Gar- 

 den was formed at Calcutta, and, as it would appear, placed 

 under the management of Colonel Kydd, who had, pre- 

 viously, a private garden, nearly on the same spot. In 1793, 

 Dr. Roxburgh was appointed to the charge of this establish- 

 ment. By his abilities and exertions, the number of species 

 it contained in 1814, was 3500. With the aid of native 

 artists, whose talents for flower-painting are truly astonish- 

 ing, he also formed a collection of nearly 2000 drawings, 

 which, with the descriptions made by himself from the recent 

 plants, were transmitted to the museum of the Hon. East 

 India Company, in London. From these, under the able 

 direction of Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Dry and er and Mr. 

 Brown made a selection of the most useful and curious kinds, 

 from which the three magnificent volumes of the Plants of 

 Coromandel have been compiled. During the same year in 

 which Dr. Carey printed the Hortus Benghalensis, or " Cata- 



