TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 905 
oblivion by Professor John Burman, of Amsterdam (commonly known as the 
elder Burman), and was published under the title of ‘ Herbarium Amboinense,’ 
in seven folio volumes, between the years 1741 and 1755. The illustrations of 
this work cover over a thousand species, but they are printed on 696 plates. 
These illustrations are as much inferior to those of Van Rheede’s book as the de- 
scriptions are superior to those of the latter. The works of Plukenet, published 
in London between 1696 and 1705, in quarto, contain figures of a number of 
Indian plants which, although small in size, are generally good portraits, and 
therefore deserve mention in an enumeration of botanical books connected with 
British India. An account of the plants of Ceylon, under the name ‘Thesaurus 
Zeylanicus,’ was published in 1737 by John Burman (the elder Burman), and in this 
work many of the plants which are common to that island and to Peninsular India 
are described. Burman’s book was founded on the collections of Paul Hermann, 
who spent seven years (from 1670 to 1677) exploring the Flora of Ceylon at the 
expense of the Dutch East India Company. The nomenclature of the five books 
already mentioned is all uni-nominal. 
Hermann’s Cingalese collection fell, however, sixty years after the publication 
of Burman’s account of it, into the hands of Linnzeus, and that great systematist 
published in 1747 an account of such of the species as were adequately represented 
by specimens, under the title ‘Flora Zeylanica.’ This Hermann Herbarium, con- 
sisting of 600 species, may still be consulted at the British Museum, by the 
trustees of which institution it was acquired, along with many of the other treasures 
possessed by Sir Joseph Banks. Linnzeus’s ‘Flora Zeylanica’ was followed in 
1768 by the ‘ Flora Indica’ of Nicholas Burman (the younger Burman)—an inferior 
production, in which about 1,500 species are described. The Herbarium on which 
this ‘ Flora Indica’ was founded now forms part of the great Herbarium Deles- 
sert at Geneva. 
The active study of Botany on the binominal system of nomenclature invented 
by Linnzeus was initiated in India itself by Koenig,a pupil of that great reformer 
and systematist. It will be convenient to divide the subsequent history of Botanic 
science in India into two periods, the first extending from Koenig’s arrival in 
India in 1768 to Sir Joseph Hooker's arrival in 1848 ; and the second from the latter 
ate to the present day. 
The pioneer John Gerard Koenig was a native of the Baltic province of Courland. 
He was a correspondent of Linnzeus, whose pupil he had formerly been. Koenig went 
out to the Danish Settlement at Tranquebar (150 miles south of Madras) in 1768, 
and at once began the study of Botany with all the fervour of an enthusiasm which 
he succeeded in imparting to various correspondents who were then settled near 
him in Southern India. These friends formed themselves into a society under the: 
name of ‘The United Brothers,’ the chief object of their union being the promotion 
of Botanical study. Three of these brothers, viz. Heyne, Klein, and Rottler, were 
missionaries located near Tranquebar. Gradually the circle widened, and before 
the century closed, the enthusiasm for Botanic research had spread to the younger 
Presidency of Bengal, and the number of workers had increased to about twelve, 
among whom may be mentioned Fleming, Hunter, Anderson, Berry, John, Rox-- 
burgh, Buchanan (afterwards Buchanan-Hamilton), and Sir William Jones, so well 
known as an Oriental scholar. At first it was the custom of this brotherhood 
merely to exchange specimens, but gradually names began to be given, and speci- 
mens, both named and unnamed, began to be sent to Botanists of established 
reputation in Europe. Many plants of Indian origin came thus to be described by 
Retz, Roth, Schrader, Willdenow, Vahl,andSmith. Rottler was the only member 
of the band who himself published in Europe descriptions of any of the new species 
of his own collecting, and these appeared in the ‘Nova Acta Acad. Nat. Curio- 
sorum’ of Berlin, A little later Sonnerat and other Botanists of the French Settle- 
ment at Pondicherry sent large collections of plantsto Paris, and these were followed 
at a considerably later date by the collections of Leschenhault. These French col- 
lections were described chiefly by Lamarck and Poiret. Hitherto Botanical work in 
India had been more or less desultory, and it was not until the establishment in 1787 
of the Botanic Garden at Calcutta that a recognised centre of Botanical activity was. 
