6 
HISTORY OF THE BOTANICAL 
Indian Botany and his long-continued labours in the cause of that 
science in India. 
“ On my way back to India/' he writes, “ I touched at Aden in 
October 1846, and while the steamer was coaling, was able to make a 
short herborization in the little ravine behind the hotel and on the very 
hare rocky sides of a hill adjoining. As very little seems to be known 
regarding the flora of this terrestrial paradise, I think that the results of 
my two hours' stroll may prove not uninteresting, as there are some curious 
forms and new genera and species to be noted among the few flowers 
I collected. The soil in which I found them was gravelly and rocky, 
the rocks all of volcanic origin." 1 
The results of this limited botanical execursion were communicated to 
the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1847. Of the 40 species he collected 
in that short period, no less than 11 were new to science. 
Anderson gives a true appreciation of Edgeworth's paper when he 
•says : — 
<c The insurmountable difficulties attending the identification of such 
obscure species as those composing the Aden flora, without having access 
to extensive libraries and herbaria, are shown by the alterations I have 
made in many of the specific names proposed by Mr. Edgeworth ; while 
at the same time his valuable suggestions and accurate descriptions prove 
his extensive knowledge of genera and species." 2 ) 
J, it. Moth, 1847. — J. R. Roth appears to have been in Aden in 
1847. He read a paper on the Peninsula of Aden " before the Royal 
Acadamy of Sciences at Munich 3 on the 15th January 1848. Hooker's 
Journal of Botany (1849), borrowed the following extract from Roth's 
description : 
" The indigenous plants are, on account of the aridity of the ground 
and air, limited to a few of the desert. Cultivation is out of the ques- 
tion, for want of means of irrigation. The largest tree is Sterculia urens 
which occurs sparingly in the deep recesses on the western shore. 
Boinciana elata and Acacia planifrons appear, likewise, of considerable 
size, in bays of difficult access. Most of them are felled at an early age ; 
Balsamodendron Opobalsamum ) Euphorbia Triaculeata , Cap pa vis 
1 Edgeworth, M. P. A couple of hours’ Herborization at Aden, Journ. As. Soc. Beng. 
Vol. 16 , p. mi. 
3 Anderson, T. Florida Adenensis, London, I860, p. IV. 
3 Roth, J. R. Ueher die Halbinsel Aden. Muuchen Gelehr. Anz. XXVI (1848) col. 
313-18 ; Munch. Bull. Akad. 1818, col. 137-142. 
