A Selection of British Books on the Plant Wealth of India from the 18th and 19th centuries

Documenting plant wealth of India became an immediate priority for the East India Company, and later for the British colonial government. Initially, interest in Indian botany began with the therapeutic properties of medicinal plants by British physicians “not so much for financial savings as in the use of more serviceable drugs,” and later many prominent British botanists extensively documented important plants of India for commercial and horticultural purposes. In addition, study of tropical botany became a novel intellectual activity in Europe and enhanced the reputations of the individuals involved in it.

In the words of J.D. Hooker (The Flora of British India, published under the authority of the secretary of state for India in council, Vol. 1-7, 1879-1897), "India represented perhaps the richest, and is certainly the most varied botanical area of the surface of the globe, and one which, in a greater degree that any other, contains representatives of floras of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.” The titles of the books shown here establish how earnestly British were documenting botanical-medical knowledge systems of India for medical, commercial and horticultural purposes. However, the sources of Indian knowledge recorded in these works - Indian texts, Indian scholars and practitioners - were not acknowledged in British documents.