6 HISTORY OF THE INVESTIGATION OF THE FLORA OF SURINAM. 



grown on the country-seat Bronste near Haarlem and his numerous drawings 

 of algae and diatoms. Already during his journey to Italy and Sicily in 1833 

 he collected plants, which collection he afterwards greatly enlarged by the 

 purchase of various other collections. Having become acquainted with the 

 works of Humboldt and Martius the desire was born in him to see the tropics. 

 In 1837 he set out on a voyage to Surinam where he arrived in November. 

 On his numerous expeditions, which however did not extend very far into 

 the interior, he collected about 1200 specimens, part of which were given 

 him by Focke, as appears from the labels of Splitgerber's plants in the State 

 Herbarium at Leyden. He remained in correspondence with Focke for a 

 long time. 



His first work after his return in August 1838 was to work out his own 

 material. His plan of publishing Illustrationes Florae Surinamensis was not 

 executed because death intervened. But he published part of his plants in 

 the Tijdschrift voor Natuurlijke geschiedenis en Physiologie of 1840, in which 

 he dealt with tho genus Voyria and his ferns and in the same periodical of 

 1S42, in which Bignoniaceae and various other families were published. In 

 1841 he visited England in order to compare in the herbarium of the British 

 Museum his collection with the original specimens of Aublet. On this oc- 

 casion he became acquainted with Schomburgk. After having visited the her- 

 baria at Paris, Munich, Geneva and Vienna he returned to Holland, where 

 already the following year (1842J paralysis, followed by softening of the 

 brain, put an end to his life. His herbarium in the meantime had grown to 

 some 20000 specimens. His Surinamian plants are on the whole remarkably 

 well determined, Splitgerber devoting extraordinary care to the determination 

 and being enabled by his fortune to travel and compare his material with 

 foreign herbaria. ') 



During his residence at Paramaribo Splitgerber also made the acquain- 

 tance of Hostmann, as appears from Hostmann's letter to Hooker. Hostmann 

 tells in it that he has given numerous specimens to Splitgerber. These plants 

 are not found in Splitgerber's herbarium at Leyden, however. Tnere is at 

 Leyden, on the other hand, a collection of Hostmann's duplicates, without 

 numbers and undetermined, the origin of which is unknown. It is not impos- 

 sible that this is the collection mentioned by Hostmann. 



A few years after Splitgerber's death the colony was visited by a bot- 

 anist of no less zeal, Hermann Kegel, born at Gerbstadt near Eisleben, who 

 in 1844 went to Surinam at the expense of the firm van Houtte at Ghent, 

 chiefly with the object of collecting live plants. Apart from Kappler's last 

 journey, Kegel of all earlier collectors in the colony, certainly penetrated 

 deepest into the interior. After having first collected for a time in the en- 

 virons of Paramaribo and got so exhausted that he fell dangerously ill, he 

 undertook an expedition to the Upper Surinam, visited Beigendal, the Joden- 



') De Vriese, Tijdschrift Nat. Geschied. en Phys. XII (1845) p. 71 



