Seeds of Exploration

In the heat of the Indian summer in May 2015, opposition leader MP K.C. Tyagi was able to raise the temperature further in the Indian parliament. He accused Baba Ramdev of promoting gender selection by selling a product called Putranjeevak Beej. The name suggests that it could ensure a male progeny. Baba Ramdev promptly parried the attack, responding that there were no such claims made on the product label. His product, he asserted, was branded on the scientific name of its main ingredient.

That turned out to be true. There are two scientific names of the main ingredient, a seed known in the Indian Ayurvedic system—Drypetes roxburghii and Putranjiva roxburghii wall. The second one is the accepted name listed in the Indian Biodiversity Portal. The botanical naming convention follows what is known as binomial nomenclature—a two-term naming system for species developed by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. The names are based on Latin grammatical forms but may include foreign language words. The first word is always capitalized. The second word is not, even if it is derived from a proper noun. The two-term system usually names the species and the genus. But there are exceptions. The second term could be the name of the person who discovered it, named it, or was simply being honoured while naming the species.

Putranjiva Roxburghii wall. is a three-term name. Putranjiva is the original Sanskrit name. Roxburgh was the Superintendent of the Botanical Gardens in Shibpur, near Kolkata, under whose directions many herbs, plants and floral species were collected, described and recorded in the 18th century. So Roxburgh is the person being honoured in naming this species. But what about the third term that appears, Wall? The third word in the binomial system always refers to the person who first described it or named it.

Wall, in this instance, is short for Wallich—Nathaniel Wallich—the man who first catalogued and described the plant.

Nathaniel Wallich was born in Copenhagen in 1786. His father Wulff ben Wallich was a rich Jewish merchant from Altona, a town near Hamburg, in Germany. It was the age of enlightenment in Europe, and science, arts, philosophy and literature were flourishing. But the stigma against Jews remained strong.

Nathaniel was born Nathan ben Wulff. Later, he adopted the more conventional name Nathan Wallich, and thereafter Nathaniel, as an adult. It is likely that he may have wanted to sever obvious ties with his Jewish past by acquiring a more Christian name.

Wallich was a gifted student. He studied botany under the Danish-Norwegian botanist and zoologist Martin Vahl. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Surgeons at Copenhagen in 1806. But an academic post was not possible for a Jew. So, when he was offered a post as a military surgeon in the Danish colony of Serampore, in India, he grabbed the opportunity. In April 1807 he set sail from Denmark. He arrived in Bengal later the same year, in November.

Serampore[1] was at that time a Danish colony called Fredicksnagor, after the then Danish king Frederick the VI^th . Nathaniel started working in Serampore, near Calcutta, a vibrant hub of activity in those days. But soon, things went south. It was the peak of the Napoleonic wars. Denmark had allied with France. In the many battles that ensued, Denmark lost several against Britain. Danish territories in India were annexed by the British, and Serampore was siezed. Wallich was captured and thrown into jail.

Someone must have discovered that he was a scholar, and not a soldier. Word reached William Roxburgh, then heading the Botanical Garden a few kilometers downriver at Shibpur. Impressed by Wallich's scholarship, Roxburgh planned to get him released. He believed that if the British could get Wallich to work for them, it would be extremely rewarding.

This was the age of exploration. Many amateur and professional botanists were already busy collecting specimens and cataloguing them. The Royal Botanical Gardens in Shibpur, just across the Hooghly from Calcutta, was well established, with Roxburgh running operations.

Roxburgh has been called the father of Indian Botany. He had studied medicine at Edinburgh University. But during the course he had studied botany and Linnaean taxonomy as well. He entered the service of the East India Company and spent most of his early service in Samalkot in present day Andhra Pradesh. Here he established experimental gardens. He grew coffee, pepper, cinnamon, indigo, and breadfruit. He also trained a team of Indian artists in botanical drawings, who produced nearly 500 drawings of the local flora.[2]

Very little though, is known about Roxburgh's artists. Artists were not credited, and they did not sign their names. But it is likely that a certain Govindoo was one of the artists in the south who contributed to Roxburgh's illustrations. Roxburgh published "Plants of the Coast of Coromandel", in folio volumes in 1795, 1802, and in 1819.

Roxburgh took charge of the Calcutta Botanical Garden in November 1793 as the Superintendent after the death of Robert Kyd[3]. He continued to use Indian artists to create illustrations of plants. It seems at least one of these artists may have been a certain Zayn-al-din from Patna. From Calcutta, Roxburgh sent 1200 drawings to the Directors of the Company in December 1797 and 1300 more in February 1801.

It was under this atmosphere of fervent activity that Wallich was released from jail and joined Roxburgh at the Botanical gardens, employed under the British East India Company. Wallich may have also been driven by the hope that he could perhaps erase his Jewish past and the associated stigma. He began to speak and write in English, and never went back to writing in Danish or German.

Although employed as a surgeon, most of his work was in the area of botany. While working under the expert guidance of Roxburgh, he proved himself a very capable successor. Wallich undertook many expeditions across the subcontinent and into Nepal, Burma and the Himalayas, collecting specimens and producing illustrations.

Wallich too employed Indian artists—but began to insist that they sign the paintings with their name, essentially, ensuring that they were credited. Two such artists who produced many illustrations on his Nepal journeys were Vishnupersaud and Gorachand.

Wallich also paid a lot of attention to Indian art and history outside his role in the Botanical Gardens. He was the first director of the Oriental Museum of the Asiatic Society which later became the Indian Museum in Calcutta.

But the humidity and heat of the tropics and especially the Calcutta climate never suited him. He was ill most of the year, suffering from possibly malaria and dysentery. But he dogged on, collecting and compiling a wealth of information on the flora in the subcontinent and beyond. In fact, it is quite remarkable what he achieved. If you visit the Park Street cemetery in Calcutta, you might be taken aback at the number of graves of Europeans who died in their early thirties. In comparison, Wallich had a long tenure.

In 1811 he traveled to Mauritius to convalesce. Roxburgh’s health too, was affected and he was compelled to give up his position as Superintendent of the Royal Botanical Garden at Shibpur. So, in 1817 Nathaniel Wallich was appointed as Superintendent by the East India Company. Wallich returned and continued his work across the subcontinent and beyond, tavelling as far as Singapore. In 1821, Wallich travelled to Nepal, one of the very first Englishmen to go there, and returned with many new specimens.

He published two works of his own, the Tentamen Flora Napalensis Illustratae, and the Plantae Asiaticae Rariores. Roxburgh had started a Flora Indica but died before it could be completed. Wallich augmented and completed the book and published the first volume in 1820.

Wallich had to take leave again in 1828 for health reasons and travelled to Britain. He took with him 1200 drawings, made by artists at the Botanical Garden, as well as those who accompanied him on excursions to Nepal, Singapore, and Burma. He also carried 20 tons of herbarium specimens packed in 30 barrels and 52 chests, along with 12 cases of living plants. The East India Company provided him with a house in London. Here he spent the next four years curating and cataloguing the specimens and coordinating the production of his book.

In 1845, Wallich resigned from his post and sailed for the last time from Bengal. He was tired and chronically ill. He went back to his house in Soho, London. There he continued to work on his collections. He also bought his own house but only lived for another few months. He died in 1846.

---

[1] “Serampore” itself is an Anglicized version of the original Bengali name “Srirampur”

[2] Indian art had flourished under the Mughals and Rajputs. Miniature painters of the highest calibre had worked in India for many centuries, and artisans across the country were employed in decorating textiles and furniture. Now with the decline of the Mughal empire, and the loss of patronage these artists had to seek work elsewhere for survival. Roxburgh, and many other Europeans seized the opportunity and employed them for their own benefit.

Indian art, however, was different from European requirements. It lacked perspective, because the miniature style was flat. Moreover, instead of being accurate and systematic in exposition, the art was more decorative, with floral motifs adorning the pages. They had to be trained in the exacting methods required for scientific illustration. Over time, the artists came to excel in their ability to illustrate for scientific demands.

 [3] Initially botanists were interested in the specimens because they believed the exotic plants may have medicinal properties. But then, commercial interests of the East India Company overtook scientific curiosity. In 1786 Colonel Robert Kyd proposed to the Court of Directors of the East India Company that a botanical garden be created in Calcutta. Kyd was an amateur botanist. But for practical reasons he decided to highlight the commercial benefits of such a venture, underplaying the scientific impetus. He wrote that the garden should be created "not for the purpose of collecting rare plants as things of curiosity or furnishing articles for the gratification of luxury, but for establishing a stock for disseminating such articles as may prove beneficial to the inhabitants as well as the natives of Great Britain, and which ultimately may tend to the extension of the national commerce and riches". And so, the Botanical gardens were established at Shibpur.