EXPLORATION OF ADEN. 
11 
Brandis speaks of a certain “ Mrs. Sp. who/' he says, “ is not an 
amateur only but a perfect and well trained botanist, who is said to own 
the best microscope which, up to now, has been constructed in England, 
We regret not having been able to ascertain the name of that accom- 
plished lady, because, in all probability, some of her collections must 
still be preserved in a museum or private herbarium of England. 1 
R t H. Schomburgk, 1857 (?). — There are a few Aden plants at Kew 
collected by Sir Robert Hermann Schomburgk, 2 We do not know the 
exact date of his visit to Aden. It must have been before 1860, as 
Anderson made use of his specimens for the publication of his “ Florala/' 
It was piobably in 1857 when Schomburgk was appointed British re- 
presentative to the Siamese court, 
TV Anderson, 1859,— Thomas Anderson 3 was the first to give a 
systematic description of the flora of Aden. Belonging to the Bengal 
medical service he was actively engaged during the Mutiny. In 1858 
we find him in Calcutta, but, his health failing, he was obliged to go 
home. i( While detained at Aden/'’ he writes, a on my return from India 
in May 1859, I was enabled to make two short excursions nearly to the 
centre of the peninsula, and, considering the limited character of the 
flora, I secured an extensive set of specimens of nearly all its species. I 
was so fortunate as to find most in a good state for identification ; the 
1 Note: — It seems that the plants collected by Brandis exist no longer. Professor Strasbur- 
ger kindly informed me that they are not at Bonn, but he suggested that they might be in 
Hamburg, as the f Botanische Staaisinstitute * of that town had aquired Brandis’s herbarium 
Professor Pitting, the Director of the Botanical Institutes of Hamburg tells me, that there 
are no plants from Aden in the Hamburg Herbarium. It is, therefore, probable that the 
plants which Brandis gathered at Aden, perished in the same fire. which destroyed his early 
^collections. 
2 Schomburgk was born at Freiburg in Prussian Saxony, June 5th, 1804, and died 11th 
March 1865 at Schoneberg near Berlin. 
8 T. Anderson was born in Edinburgh in 1832. He graduated as M. D. in the same 
town in 1853. In the following year he entered the Bengal Medical Service, and went to 
Calcutta. Subsequently he went to Delhi, where he was engaged during the Mutiny. After 
his return to England in 1859, he published his Florula in 1860. He returned to India and 
took temporary charge of the Calcutta Botanic Gardens, during the absence of Dr. T. 
Thomson. He succeeded him afterwards as Director. In this capacity he did much to 
improve the Gardens, by introducing valuable medicinal plants, especially Cinchona and 
Ipecacuanha. From 1834-1866 be undertook to organise and superintend the Forest Depart- 
ment in Bengal. Serious illness forced him in 1868 to return to Europe. He recovered and 
devoted himself to working out the Flora lndica. He paid special attention to the Ac an - 
thacece , but before he was able to complete his work, he died at Edinburgh on the 26th 
October 1870. 
Cf. Journ. Bot. (1870), p. 368 ; Card. Chronicle (1870), p. 1478 ; Trans. Bot. Soc. Ed., 
Yol. 11 (i875), p. 41 ; Proc, Linn. Soc. (1870-71), p. lxxx. 
