54 FLORA INDICA. 



While the botany of continental India has advanced thus 

 rapidly, equal progress has been made in the Dutch posses- 

 sions by the indefatigable exertions of a succession of distin- 

 guished botanists. One of the earliest in the field, though 

 the extent of his labours is unfortunately but little known, 

 was Dr. Horsfield, whose researches in Java and the neigh- 

 bouring islands began in 1803, and were continued till 1819. 

 During that time he collected upwards of two thousand spe- 

 cies, the most curious and interesting of which have been 

 published by Messrs. Brown and Bennett, in the ' Plantse Ja- 

 vanicse rariores,' one of the most profound and accurate bo- 

 tanical works of the day, and one most important for the In- 

 dian botanist to study with attention. 



Professor Blume, whose extraordinary labours have long 

 since placed him at the head of Malayan botanists, was ori- 

 ginally a student of medicine and zoology, and directed his 

 attention to botany in the prosecution of his pharmaceutical 

 studies. The remarkable novelty and curious forms of vege- 

 tation with which he was surrounded in Java, effectually di- 

 verted his attention from his original pursuits ; and he under- 

 took a botanical tour in that island in 1823, 1824, provided 

 with an unusually large staff of collectors and artists ; and in 

 1825 he commenced the ' Bijdragen tot de Flora van Neder- 

 landsch Indie,' an octavo work, containing descriptions of an 

 immense number of new genera and species of Javanese and 

 other insular plants. Though very incomplete in its scope, 

 and written in great ignorance of the labours of others, and 

 of the necessity of detailed descriptions, this is in many re- 

 spects a remarkable book, evincing a capacity for scientific 

 botany, such as has been displayed by few at so early an age 

 and under so great disadvantages. 



On his return to Holland, Professor Blume commenced his 

 magnificent publications on the plants of Java and others of 

 the Malayan Islands, all of which are indispensable to the 

 Indian botanist; very many species, and nearly all the ge- 

 nera of these islands, being also common to the Malayan 



