"JOHN" ROXBlTRGn 203.' 



Roxburgh family printed by Sir George King, in his " Memoir of 

 William lioxburgh " prefixed to vol. v. of the Annals of the Calcutta 

 Botanic Garden (1895). In this the issue of William Roxburgh 

 by his three wives is detailed : the seventh child by the second wife 

 is " James, Indian Army, married Miss Carnegie " : the name John 

 occurs nowhere in the table. 



Sir George gives a detailed history of the Flora Indica, from 

 which I extract the following : — " The publication of the Carey and 

 Wallich edition of Roxburgh's Flora ended with the second volmiie. 

 Eight years having elapsed without anything having been done 

 towards the completion of its publication, its author's two sons, 

 Captains Bruce and James Roxburgh, neither of whom was a botanist, 

 determined to print, at their own expense, their father's manuscript 

 exactl}^ as he left it." The only indication that James had any 

 botanical knowledge is the association of his name with the Flcmingia 

 already mentioned. I had assumed that this had been added by 

 him when he was arranging to print vol. iii. of his father's Flora, 

 but this was not the case, as the name " F. jyrostrata Roxb. Junr." 

 stands thus in the manuscript copy of the Flora Indica in the 

 Department of Botan}'', to which reference was made in this Journal 

 for 1902 (p. 420) *, and the attribution was presumably by William 

 Roxburgh himself. 



It would seem that the statement in the Biografhical Index 

 that J. Roxburgh's Cape plants are in the National Herbarium is at 

 best doubtful, if it be not absolutely eiToneous. The Roxburghian 

 specimens in the Banksian Herbarium were collected by his father, 

 who " resided a twelvemonth " at the Cape, whence he sent plants and 

 seeds to Lambert (see D. Don, I. c.) and also to Banks : the endorse- 

 ment of one of the Banksian sheets fixes the date as 1799: many of 

 the Ericas described by Salisbury in Trans. Linn. Soc. vi. are based 

 on these specimens and are named in Salisbury's hand. In 180S 

 R. C. Alexander Prior presented to the Herbarium a large number of 

 sheets from his herbarium containing South African plants, many 

 of which bear printed tickets : " C. B. S. Roxburgh " : — these are 

 sometimes accompanied by small tickets in William Roxburgh's 

 hand, A reference to Roxburgh's Hortus Henffhalensis (1814) 

 shows that plants were introduced from the Cape b}^ " J. R." in 

 1802 and 1804, which fixes the date of James Roxburgh's stay 

 there: in 1810 and 1811 he introduced plants from Chittiigong. It 

 would appear from the Catalogue of Lambert's sale that the South 

 African collections of both Roxburghs were included in lot 2G4, 

 which was purchased, as the copy of the Catalogue in the Dej)art- 

 ment of Botany shows, by a dealer named Rich for £34. Hence it 

 would seem, as has been already said, that James's only claim to 

 recognition as a botanist is his association with Flemingia prostrata, 

 and that " John " had no existence. 



James Britten. 



* I may take this opportunity of saying that when suggesting that the 1832 

 edition of the Flora Indira was printed from this copy I was not acquainted with 

 Carey's definite statement prefixed to vol. i. that the work was printed from the 

 MSS. left with him by William Roxburgh. 



