IIISTOJIV OF liOTANV. 313 



sterdam in 1658, in I'olio, under the title, De India; utriusquc 

 re naturali. 



In the East Indies, also, the sovereignty of the Dutch was 

 favourable to science. The Governor of Malabar, Henry 

 Adrian van Rheede, commanded the plants of IVIalabar to be 

 marked and described in a style of kingly magnificence. 

 Hence originated the Hortus IN^alabaricus, published between 

 1676 and 1703, in twelve folios. This work was surpassed, 

 not in the number of species, bu.t in the value of the defini- 

 tions and descriptions, by the Herbarium Amboinense, which 

 was patronized by George Eberhard Humph, governor at 

 Amboina, and was published by John Burmann, in seven vo- 

 lumes, at Amsterdam, between 1741 and 1751. 



The West India plants were investigated by Hans Sloane, 

 a learned Irishman, who was physician to the Governor of 

 Jamaica, and afterwards to the King of Great Britain, and 

 president of the Royal Society. He died 1753. His prin- 

 cipal work is entitled a Voyage to Madeira ; in two \oJumcs, 

 London, 1707 to 1727, in folio. 



449. 



Botanical gardens also became extremely common during 

 the seventeenth century. In Padua a botanical garden had 

 been laid out since the year 1533; in Pisa since 1544; in 

 Pavia since 1556 ; and in Bologna since 1563. About the 

 end of the 16th century, Peter Richier de Belleval laid out 

 the first botanical garden at Montpelier in France, in whicli 

 he reared the plants of the south of France, and left behind 

 him a multitude of notices respecting them, which, at the dis- 

 tance of two centuries, were published by Villars and Gilli- 

 bert in the Demonstrations Botaniques of the latter, at Lyons 

 1796, in quarto. The Royal Garden at Paris was first laid 

 out in 1635. In England, the Royal Garden at Hampton 

 Court, and the garden of medicinal plants at Chelsea, had 

 been richly stocked since the time of Queen Elizabeth. The 

 superintendant of the former was John Parkinson, whose 

 Theatrum Botanicum, published at London 1640, in foho, 

 contains an arrangement of the plants according to their uses 



