5CA JOURNAL BOMB A Y NA TURA L HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. X V! I. 



Malabar, undertook the famous " Hortus Malabaricus." The plants 

 collected by Brahmans between 1674 and 1676, were sent to Cochin, 

 where the missionary Mathseus made the drawings. Hermann van 

 Doulp, the Secretary to Government at Cochin, translated the 

 descriptions of the plants from the Malayalim into Latin. Up to 

 1703, 12 volumes, with 794 plates appeared at Amsterdam. A com- 

 mentary on this first great Indian work on plants by Buchanan 

 Hamilton is contained in the " Transactions of the LimiEean 

 Society." 1 



William Roxburgh, born at Underwood in Scotland, proceeded to 

 India in the medical service of the East India Company. In the 

 early part of his career his attention was confined to the peninsula, 

 as he was stationed at Samulcottah from the year 1781, where he paid 

 particular attention to the cultivation of pepper. Into the plantations, 

 established for this purpose, he introduced the coffee, cinnamon, 

 nutmeg, annatto, bread-fruit tree, sappan-wood tree, and mulberry. 

 His valuable papers on the cultivation of rice, sugar, and pepper were 

 published in Dalrymple's " Oriental Repository." He knew and 

 corresponded with John Koenig of Courland (in the service of the 

 Danish Government), a pupil of Linnaeus, who first gave an impulse 

 to scientific botany. 2 Roxburgh made large collections of plants in the 

 Carnatic, but he had the misfortune to lose them all, with his books 

 and papers, in an inundation at Injeram. He, however, recommenced 

 making a fresh collection, and the Court of Directors sent him out a 

 present of botanical books. In the autumn of 1798 he was appointed 

 superintendent of the botanic garden in Calcutta which had been es- 

 tablished by Colonel Kyd. His superintendence extended to 1814, and 

 few men have laboured with greater zeal, assiduity, and success, though 

 he had very indifferent health. During one of his voyages Dr. Carey, 

 the celebrated missionary and orientalist, took charge of the garden and 

 published Roxburgh's Catalogue of the contents of the botanic garden. 

 Of the 3,505 species described, 1,510 were named by Roxburgh. Be- 

 tween 1795 and 1816 his " Plants of the Coast of Coromandel," 

 in 3 vols., folio, with 300 coloured engravings were published by 

 the East India Company. The general descriptive work of the plants 

 of India called " Flora Indica" was not published for many years 



1 . Transactions of the Liniisean Society, Vol. XIII, XIV, XV. 



2 . Kcenig's Herbarium and MSS, are in the British Museum. 



