208 



tendent of the arsenal of the Nawab of Oudh at Lucknow, 

 where he died on Sept. 13th, 1800. He bequeathed his fortune 

 to found institutions — called " La Martiniere " — for educating 

 European children at Lucknow, Calcutta and Lyons. Most 

 of the drawings have been named by Dr. William Roxburgh, 

 who was superintendent of the Botanic Garden, Calcutta, 1793- 

 1814, and described some new species in his " Flora Indica *' 

 from material obtained from Martin, who was Hying at Lucknow 

 part of that time. Under Andropogon Martini, Roxb., I.e. 

 sp. 277 (== A. Schoenanthus, var. Martini, Hook, f.), a note 

 states: — *' A native of the high lands of Balla-ghat. General 

 Martin collected the seeds while there with the Army, during 

 the last war with Tippo Sultan, and has reared abundance of 

 it at Lucknow." Roxburgh, in vol. iii. p. 421, when describ- 

 ing Artemisia elegans (= A. scoparia, Waklst. & Kit.), says: 

 " Keceived from General Martin at Lucknow under the name of 

 Abbuttna." Martin must have taken an interest in plants 

 before he settled in Lucknow, for when describing Caesalpinia 

 sepiaria, Roxburgh (I.e. ii. 360) calls it the Mysore Thorn and 

 says that it "was introduced into Bengal from that country by 

 General Martin, where it is now as common as it is in the 

 Mysore country, and is used to make fences." One drawing 

 has attached to it an undated letter from Dr. Robert Bruce, a 

 surgeon at Lucknow in Martin's time, which reads thus: — "My 

 dear Martin — The flower is very well done. It is called in 

 botany by a pompous name, the Gioriosa superba, and is, I 

 fancy, the most beautiful of all the Lily tribe. The paper is 

 infinitely superior to the country kind for covering drawings. 

 Having already some of it I won't rob you of yours, but beg 

 your acceptance of my best thanks. I have, however, kept 

 one of the sheets which was of folio size just suited to the 

 size of the drawing paper, which I shall send down to Calcutta 

 as a muster. " Yours ever, R. Bruce. " 



The drawings appear to have passed into the possession of 

 Sir Gore Ouseley, who went to India in 1787, where after a 

 few years he became Major-Commandant in the service of 

 Saadut Ali, Nawab of Oudh, and was stationed at Lucknow at 

 the time that Martin lived there. He returned to England in 

 1805. Later the collection came into the hands of his son, 

 Sir Frederick Arthur Gore Ouseley, Professor of Music at 

 Oxford University, and afterwards into the possession of 

 Mr. F. W. Barry, Assistant in the Library, "Windsor Castle, 

 from whom they have been acquired by Kew. 



"With this collection are other drawings on wsmaller-sized paper, 

 representing plants from the Caucasus or Northern Persia, which 

 may have been made for Sir Gore Ouseley, who (accompanied 

 by his elder brother, Sir Willi am Ouseley, as private secretary) 

 was Ambassador-Extraordinary and Minister-Plenipotentiary to 



the Persian Court from 1810 to 1814, and was at Tabriz in 

 Northern Persia in June, 1912. Many of these drawings are 



c. h. w« 



exquisitely finished. 



