History of Ceylon Botany. 373 



• ' An Historical Relation of the Island of Ceylon in the East Indies ; 

 together with an Account of the detaining in Captivity the Author 

 and divers other Englishmen now living there, and of the Author's 

 Miraculous Escape. Illustrated with figures and a map of the 

 island.' London, 1681, fol. It is both trustworthy and entertaining, 

 and has been translated into French, Dutch, and German. It con- 

 tains an intelligent account of the trees of the island. Linnseus 

 named the Rubiaceous genus Knoxia in his honour. 



Johann G-erhard Konig 1 , a pupil of the illustrious author 

 of the 'Flora Zeylanica,' collected in the island in 1777, 1780, 

 and 178T. Konig was born at Courland about 1728. He visited 

 Iceland in 1765; but from 1768 was in the East Indies until his 

 death at Jagannathpur in 1785. He was at first physician to the 

 Danish settlement in the Carnatic, and subsequently naturalist to 

 the Nabob of Arcot, and, in 1778, joined the Madras establishment 

 of the East India Company. He also collected in Siam and 

 Malacca, and bequeathed his plants and MSS. to Banks ; but his 

 Ceylon journal was unfortunately lost.* There is a short account 

 of Konig's visits to Ceylon in August Hennings's ' Geschichte 

 des Carnatiks,' Hamburg and Kiel, 1785, pp. 289-311. Konig's 

 name has been twice commemorated ; by Tournefort for a genus of 

 Malvace'z prenamed Domdeya, and by Linnseus for an arctic plant 

 now merged in Polygonum. 



Carl Peter Thunberg-, the pupil and successor of Linnaeus, 

 was in Ceylon from August, 1777, to February, 1778. t He was 

 born in 1743, graduated as M.D. at Upsala in 1770, visited the 

 Cape in 1771, Java and Japan (1774-1777), his visit to Ceylon 

 being on his return journey. He became professor at Upsala in 

 1784, and died in 1828. 



From the British seizure of the Dutch possessions in 1796, when 

 they were annexed to the presidency of Madras, until 1801, when 

 Ceylon became a Crown colony, nothing seems to have been done 

 for botany ; but, before the deposition of the King of Kandy in 

 1 81 5, William Kerr, a Kew gardener and collector, who had 

 previously been in Java, Canton, and the Philippines, was appointed, 

 by Sir Joseph Banks, Superintendent of the Botanical Garden at 

 Slave Island, Colombo. He was, in fact, appointed in 18 12, but 

 died in 1814.J: 



In 1 81 7, Alexander Moon, a Scotsman, was appointed, by 

 Sir Joseph Banks, Superintendent of the Gardens. He collected at 

 Gibraltar and on the Barbary coast on the way out, and formed 

 an extensive herbarium at Peradeniya. In 1824, he published 

 * Indigenous and Exotic Plants growing in Ceylon,' Colombo, 4to, 



* Britten and Boulger, ' Biogr. Index of Brit, and Irish Botanists, Supplement,' 

 p. 208 ; Roxburgh, ' Coromandel Plants,' vol. i., pref., pp. ii. iii. vi. 



+ 'Travels,' vol. iv. (1795) pp. 170-265. 



% His name is commemorated by the genus Kerria, DC. See Britten and Boulger, 

 -4>p. cit., p. 97. 



