° A BEIEF MEMOIE OF
Tlioie can be littlo [Imibt that Roxbm-gli must have made large colloctioiis of
plants during his long Indian career of thirty-eight years. Com|jaratÌTely few of these
can, hoTvever, now bo traced in oolloctions. It is known that his earlier collections in
the Camatie wcrG destroved by an inundation. lie, lio\vGvcr¡ nitide lüter collections in
that province prior to his removal to Calcutta ; and, during tlie twenty years of his
life in the Calcutta Garden, whi-n collecting -was more or loss his business, such an
ardent botanist must have accumulated lai-ge quantities of dried plants. No Indian
plants of his, however, now exist in the Calcuft-i Herbarium.* It is indeed asserted
b y Griffith, in his report on the Calcutta Garden written while he acted for
J)r. Wallich in 1834:, that the latter had carried ofí all Roxburgh's collections from
Calcutta, and that they had (mthout being distinguished by any identifying mark)
formed part of the great Ilerbariiun of Indian plants distributed to tho chief scientilie
institutions in Europe, at the expense of the Kast India Company, under Dr. Wallich's
direction. A few of Roxburgh's Indian plants are to be found in the Edinburgh
Herbarium; there are a few also at Kew and tlie British Museum, and doubtless there
are others in some of the great Herbaria on the Continent of Europe; but the mass of
them cannot be now traced. The want of complete suites of Roxburgh's plants is,
however, greatly compensated for by the drawings which he left in Calcutta of the
majority of the sjiecies named by him. Copies of all of these drawings were made
at the expense of the late Sii- W. J. Hooker, and were deposited by him at Kew where
they can be now consulted; while many of them were jn-inted on a reduced scale
in Wight's Icones J?ìantancm Jndice Orientalis.
A few j^ears after Roxburgh's death some of his friends erected a monument to
his memory on a little mound neaa- the great banyan tree. The inscription on this
monument, which was composed by Bishop Hcber, is as follows:—
Quisqtds ades
Si locus saavitate meDtem permuloet
Aut adnionet ut pie sentias de lieo
Habendus in honore tibi
Eoxburghius
Honun liortorum olim prrefectus
Yir scientioj botimioes laude floreus
Idemque amcenitatuin agrestium
Summus artifex
Coiiseirat einerem Patria
Hie vi get ingeni um
'J'u fave ot perfriiere
B. M. P. C. SuperBtites Amid A. D. 1822.
The portrait which forms the frontispiece to the present volume is a reproduction
(by the process of photographic etching by my friend Colonel James Watcrhouse) of the
picture published in thirty-third volume of the Traneacfcions of the Society of Arts
(London, 1815).
» A mimber of plants, collected at tlio Cape of GaoJ Hopo duri'.g his ksl, Toyage to lín^laiKl,
Ibe Heibarium about tv\ciitj jears ago by a suryiring daujjliler,
WILLIAM EOSBTJEGH.
In preparing this brief memoir, I have received much kind help from my friend
Mr. Henry Bcveridge, late of tho Bengal Civil Service. Mr. Beveridgo had the records
of the parish of Craigie, as well as the Register IIouso in Edinburgh, searched (unfortunately
in vain) for the entry of Roxburgh's birth; and it was ho who kindly copied
for me tho inscription on tho tombstone in Greyfriars Churchyard.
BOTANIC GAEDEN, CAIXUITA,
June 1895.
G. KING.
ANX. ROY, BOT. GAKD. CALCUTTA, VOI,. V.
J-;. J. H.—Eeg. No. 2868Ja of 1893-94—360-11-11-05.