50 PLANTS OF PRINCE OF WAL2S ISLAND. 



In this manuscript he gives first an account of Penang as 

 it was at the time of his visit and an account of the plants he 

 met with. This interesting as showing the early date of the 

 introduction of many useful plants into Penang through the 

 East Indian Company, who then possessed spice gardens, culti- 

 vated for the purpose of introducing spice plantations to the 

 English colonies and to break down the monopoly of the Dutch. 

 In this manuscript we have the records of the first fruiting of 

 the nutmeg and mangosteen in Penang. An account of the 

 cultivation of pepper was published by Hunter in the Asiatic 

 Kesearches Vol. IX 1809 and is very much the same as what 

 is written by him here, but as the original published paper is 

 rare and difficult to procure now, it is well worth reprinting 

 from his manuscript. 



I have identified most of the plants described by Hunter 

 in this paper, but there are several I have been only able to 

 guess at from description. He seems to have made a number 

 of drawings of his plants to which there are references in the 

 manuscript, but I do not know what has become of these draw- 

 ings. 



Eeference is made in many parts of the manuscript to the 

 spice gardens of the Honourable East India Company and the 

 locality given for these the first Botanic Gardens in the Straits 

 Settlements is recorded definitely for the first time viz. at Ayer 

 Hitam. The stories of these gardens is this. On the settling of 

 the island by Captain Light in 1786, there were practically no 

 cultivated plants there except a few coconuts and fruit trees. 

 The East India Company, anxious to break the Dutch monopoly 

 of spices, appointed Christopher Smith their Botanist in 1794, 

 and sent him in 1796 to the Moluccas to collect plants of spice 

 trees. He sent from Amboyna 71.266 nutmegs and 55.264 

 clove-plants and quantities of canary nuts (Canarium commune), 

 and the sugar palm, Arenga saccharifera. These were grown 

 (except for a number sent to Kew, India and the Cape) in the 

 spice-gardens at Penang. He probably sent also the other 

 ornamental and useful plants mentioned as introduced from 

 Amboina. After his return he was appointed in 1806 Superin- 

 tendent of the Botanic Gardens and died about the same year. 



Jour. Straits Branch 



