1832.] Review of Indian Botany. 133 



That materials have not been wanting we repeat, is evident, if we call 

 to mind the authors who have expressly written on Indian Botany ; and 

 among these, it is lamentable to find, that until the time of the author of 

 the present work, none of our countrymen had distinguished themselves 

 in the field. 



As not having written expressly on the subject, it is perhaps needless 

 to mention the names of Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny, though 

 in their works many plants are mentioned as being natives of India, 

 and these form very interesting subjects of research in the present 

 day, besides Galen, Oribasius, Paulus ^Egineta, and among the 

 Arabians, Mesue, Serapion, Rhazes, Avicenna. By the latter authors 

 many plants are mentioned, as being the produce of India, of which 

 no attempt appears hitherto to have been made towards their identifica- 

 tion. Ibn-ul-Bakhtar is said to have traversed Africa, Arabia, and 

 India, for the prosecution of his favourite study of plants : his MSS. 

 in the Escurial, contain descriptions of several thousand species ; and 

 his work, which is frequently referred to by the Persian authors on 

 Materia Medica, was much consulted in the composition oftheGeo- 

 graphia Sacra of the learned Bochart. 



The earliest Europeans who seem to have paid any attention to the 

 useful plants of India, are the Portuguese physicians at Goa, Garcia 

 ab Hoi to and Christopher da Costa, whose observations, with those of 

 Belon, form the basis of the work of Ausius entitled Exoticorwn libri 

 decern. Antwerp, 1563. In the works of Prosper Alpinus, though on 

 the plants and medicine of the Egyptians, many plants are men- 

 tioned of which the products are brought from India. 



The first work, however, of any note on the plants of India is 

 that of Rheede, entitled Hortus Malabaricm, in. 12 volumes, folio, 

 containing 794 plates, which, considering the time they were published, 

 are highly creditable productions. Rheede resided chiefly on the Mala- 

 bar coast, and was Governor of the Dutch settlements in the East 

 Indies ; he procured all the new and curious plants in his power, de- 

 scribed them, and had drawings made ; the plates have in them the 

 native names, with the Arabic and Hindi characters. Plukenet 

 collected nearly 8000 plants, and his works give plates of nearly 3000 

 species, among which are several Indian plants. 



Kaempfer travelled in Persia, Arabia, and India on the Coromandel 

 coast and along the banks of the Ganges, Java, Japan, &c. and his work 

 Am militates Exotica^ contains accounts of many, and plates of some, 

 plants of Japan, of which nearly allied species are found in the Hima- 

 layas. The sixth number of his work, which contained 600 figures 

 of scarce plants growing along the Ganges, has been entirely lost. 



