660 
THt: TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [Apbil 2, 1900. 
described. Bnrman'a book was founded on the col- 
leotiona of Paul Hermann, who spent seven years 
(from 1670 to 1677) exploring the Flora of Ceylon 
»t the expense o£ the Datch East India Company. 
The nomenclature of the five books already men- 
tioned is all uni-nominal. 
Hermann's Cingalese collection fell, however, sixty 
years after the publication cf Barman's account of 
it, into the hands of Linnaeus, and that great sys- 
tematist published in 1747 an account of such of 
lha species as were adequately represented by speci- 
mens, under the title ' Flora Zeylanica.' This Her- 
mann Herbarium, consisting of 600 species, may still 
be consulted at the British Museum, by the trus- 
tees of which institution it was acquired, along with 
many of the other treasures possessed by Sir Joseph 
Banks. Linnseus's 'Flora Zeylanica' was followed in 
1766 by the ' Flora Indica' of Nicholas Burmau 
(the youHger Burman) — an inferior prodaotion, in 
which about, 1,500 species are described. The Her- 
barium on which this ' Flora Indica' was founded now 
forms part of the great Herbarium Delessert at Geneva. 
The active study of Botany on the binominal system 
of nomenclature invented by Linnaeus was initiated 
in India itself by Koenig. a pupil of that great re- 
former and systematist. It will be convenient to 
divide the snbseqiient history of Botanic science in 
India into two periods, the first extending from 
Koenig's arrival in India in 1768 to Sir Joseph Hooker's 
arrival in 1848 ; and the second from the latter date 
to the present day. 
The pioneer John Gerard Koenig was a native of 
the Baltic province of Courland. He was a corre- 
spondent of Linnaeus, whose pupil he had formerly 
been. Koenig went out to the Danish Settlement 
at Tranquebar (150 miles south of BladrasJ in 1768, 
and at once began the study of Botany with all the 
fervour of an enthusiasm which he succeeded in im- 
parting to various correspondents who were then 
settled near him in Southern India. These friends 
formed themselves into a society under the name 
of 'The United Brothers,' the chief object of their 
union being the promotion of Botanical study. Three 
of these brothers, viz. Heyne, Klein and Rottler, 
were missionaries located near Tranquebar. Gra- 
dually the circle widened, and before the century 
closed, the enthusiasm for Botanic research had 
spread to the younger Presidency of Bengal, and the 
number of workers had increased to about twelve, 
among whom may be mentioned Fleming, Hunter, 
Anderson Berry, Join, Eoxburgh, Buchanan (after- 
wards Buchanan-Hamilton), and Sir William Jones, 
■o well known as an Oriental scholar. At the first 
it was the custom of this brotherhood merely to ex- 
change specimens, but gradually names began to be 
given, and specimens, both named unnamed, began 
to be sent to Botanists of established reputation in 
Europe. Many plants of Indian origin came thus 
to be described by Eetz, Roth, Schrader, Wildenow, 
Vahl, and Smith. Bottler was the only member of 
the band who himself published in Europe descrip- 
tions of any of the new species of his own collect- 
ing, and these appeared in the 'Nova Acta Aaad. 
Nat. Curiosorum' of Berlin. A little later Sonnerat 
and other Botanists of the French Settlement at 
Pondicherry sent large collections of plants to Paris, 
and these were followed at a considerably latter 
date by the collections of Leschenhault. These 
French collections were described chiefly by Lamarck 
and Poiret. Hitherto Botanical work in India had 
been more or less desultory, and it was not until 
the establishment in 1787 of the Botanic Garden at 
Calcutta that a recognised centre of Botanical acti- 
vity was established in British India. Robert Kyd, 
the founder of that Garden, was more of a gardener 
than a Botanist. He was, however, a man of much 
energy and shrewdness. The East India Company 
was still in 1787 a trading company, and a large 
part of their most profitable business was derived 
from the nutmegs and other spices exported from 
their settlements iu Penang, Malacca, Amboina, 
Sumatra, and other islands of the Malayan Archipelago. 
Jbe Company were ^Ibq in thgee days the owners of 
a fine fleet of sailing vessels, and the teak of which 
these ships were built had to be obtained from sources 
outside the Company's possessions. The proposal to 
found a Botanic Garden near Calcutta was thus re- 
commended to the Governor of the Company's set- 
tlements in Bengal on the ground that, by its means, 
the cultivation of teak and of the Malayan spices 
might be introduced into a province near one of the 
Company's chief Indian centies. Kyd, as a Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the Company's engineers and as Secre- 
tary to the INIilitary Board at Calcutta, occupied a 
position of considerable influence, and his suggestion 
evidently fell on no unwilling ears; forthe Govsrn- 
ment of Hengal, with the promptitude to accept and 
to act on good advice in scientific and semi-scienti- 
fic matters which has characterised them from the 
day of Kyd until now, lost no time in taking steps 
to find a site for the proposed garden. Colonel Kyd's 
official puiposal was dated June ], 1786 and, in a 
despatch dated August 2, Calcutta Government re- 
commended Kyd's proposal to the Coui t ot Director* 
in London. Posts were slow and infrequent in those 
days, and the Calcutta Government were impatient. 
They did not wait for a reply from Leadenhall Street, 
but in the following July they boldly secured the 
site recommended by Colonel Kyd. This sita covered 
an area of SOO acres, and the whole of it with the 
exception of thirty acres which were subsequently 
given up to Bishop Middleton for an English college, 
still continues under cultivation as a Botanic Garden. 
Kyd died in 1793, and in the same year his place 
as Superintendent of the Garden was taken by Dr. 
William Roxburgh, a young Botanical enthusiast, and 
one of Koenig's 'United Brotherhood." Roxburgh 
had studied Botany in JEdinburgb. where he was a 
favourite pupil of Dr. Hope. Desirous of seeing some- 
thing of foreign countries, he made several voyaaes 
to Madras in ships belonging to the Honourable 
East India Company. In 1776 he accepted an ap- 
pointment in the Company's Medir-al Establishment, 
and was posted to the town of Madras, where he 
very soon made the acquaintance of Koenig. Rox- 
burgh was shortly after transferred to a remote dis- 
trict, a good deal to the north of Madras, then 
named the Northern Circars. The station of Samal- 
cntta, which formed Roxburgh's headquarters during 
his sojourn in the Circars, stands on the edge of a 
hilly region possessing a very interesting Flora, and 
this Flora, he explored with the greatest ardour; 
and as part of the result of his labours an account 
some of the most interesting of its plants was pub- 
lished in London, at the East India Company's 
expense, in three large folio volumes under the title 
' The plants of the Coast of Coromandel.' This 
was Roxburgh's earliest publication on a large 
scale. The first part of this book appeard in 1795, 
and the last not until 1819, i.e. five years after the 
author's death. The increased facilities afforded to 
Roxburgh after his transfer to a comparatively well- 
equipped institution like that at Calcutta induced him 
at once to begin the preparation of descriptions of all 
the plants indigenous to British India of which he 
could procure specimens. And so diligently did he 
work that, when he was finally driven from India 
by ill-health in 1813, he left complete and ready for 
publication the manuscripts of his ' Flora Indica ' 
and of his ' Hortus Bengalensis' (the latter being 
an enumeration of the plants in cultivation in the 
Culcutta Garden;. He also left admirable coloured 
drawings (mostly of natural size) of 2,533 species of 
plants indigenous to India. Seldom have twenty 
years yielded so rich a Botanical harvest ! Dr. Box- 
burgh was thus the first Botanist who attempted to 
draw up a systematic account of the plants of India, 
and his book, which is on the Linnsean system, is 
the basis of all subsequent works on Indian Botany ; 
and until the publication of Sir Joseph Hooker's 
monumental ' Flora of British India ' it remained the 
only single book through which a knowledge of Indian 
plants could be acquired. Roxburgh was immediately 
succeeded in the Calcutta Garden by Dr. Buchanan, 
Hamilton, a man of many accomplishments, who had 
travelled from Nepal ia the North to Ara 
