2 HISTORY OF THE INVESTIGATION OF THE FLORA OF SURINAM. 



neighbouring islands and visited Guyana in 1 791, wanting to take live plants 

 from there to his garden. His collection of Surinam plants is little known 

 and is at present in the Banks herbarium (British Museum, London) and in 

 the Delessert herbarium at Geneva '). Still less important is a collection 

 by Leschenault, who visited Surinam for some months from French Guyana 

 in 1823 and made a small collection which is preserved in the Herbier 

 du Musee de Paris ^). 



A more important and especially more widely spread collection was 

 brought together in 1828 by Weigelt. This latter, a Saxon, was sent out 

 by his government in order to make a botanical collection in Surinam. 

 He died however shortly after his arrival in Surinam on the plantation 

 Brunswijk. After his death his herbarium went for the greater part to 

 North America, partly however to Europe, where it was determined by 

 Reichenbach and was distributed over several larger herbariums. His col- 

 lection consisted chiefly of Ferns, Cyperaceae and Gramina and is found 

 pretty completely e. g. in the State herbarium at Leyden. ^j 



F. W. Hostmann, a Hanoverian by birth, studied medicine at Gottingen 

 and settled in 1818 as a practitioner at Paramaribo. His extensive medical 

 practice after a short time brought him in a considerable fortune. At the 

 same time he was an ardent lover of nature and soon began to make a 

 botanical and zoological collection. In 1824 he sent a herbarium to his 

 teacher Ernst Meyer at Gottingen, who worked out the collection and 

 published it in the Nova Acta Academ. Caes. Leopold-Carolinae XII (1824). 

 Part of this collection is still in the herbarium at GSttingen, apparently 

 without the original labels of Meyer. It is unknown to me where the 

 other original specimens of Meyer are to be found. Hostmann seems to 

 have sent to Meyer no second time. About 1838 he puts himself in con- 

 nection with Sir William Hooker to whom he sends already in 1840 a 

 collection of some 500 species together with a letter which has been 

 published by Hooker in the London Journal of Botany I (t842) p. 97. 

 Hostmann tells that he has still 11 000 specimens of which he had already 

 disposed otherwise through lack of money. Probably these are the col- 

 lections that were later sold to Hohenacker. 



In this letter Hostmann describes the great difficulties which he ex- 

 periences in collecting on account of the damp climate and mentions that 

 he has made the acquaintance of Weigelt and Splitgerber. In 1841 a second 

 collection is sent to Hooker, again some 500 species with numerous dupli- 

 cates. In a letter, published by Hooker in the London Journal, page 605, 



') Urban, Symbolae Antillanae III p. 17. 



") Sagot, Catalogue des plantes de la Guyana Frangaise. Ann. des sciences 

 nat. 6""= S6rie. T. 10 p. 367. 



') Hostmann's letter to Hooker in the London Journal of Botany I (1842) 

 p. 103; Flora XI (1828) p. 94. 



