Environments of Empire by Ulrike Kirchberger

Author:Ulrike Kirchberger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press

Organizing the Network

As discussed above, there were many independent British collectors in India, ranging from East India Company servants, to soldiers, surgeons, and wives.40 All of these amateur botanists and collectors sent plants, drawings, seeds, and information on propagation and care to professional botanists at Kew and local botanic gardens such as in Calcutta. Hooker describes his encounters with many of these unofficial collectors and often sent their local knowledge to his father. In one such letter, Hooker discussed the information he gathered concerning the proper soil needed for cotton cultivation in Mysore, which he obtained from General Cubbon’s surgeon.41 Hooker employed the help of collectors such as Major Napleton in Monghyr, who collected in the nearby jungles during his free time.42 All manner of people collected and experimented with local species either as a hobby or to learn the economic benefits of species. Whether low-ranking soldiers or officers, Hooker employed all plant collectors that he met to gather independently and send their collections back to England or to local botanic gardens in Madras and Calcutta for scientific classification.43

The network of amateur and professional botanists in India reflects the diversity of interest in plants. Hooker often mentioned the lack of botanical (professional) knowledge many collectors had and chastised men who held prestigious positions within botany who did not know local uses or names. For example, Hooker criticized the director of the botanic garden in Calcutta, John McLelland, by stating, “he [McLelland] does not know the name of any of the garden plants & always takes a Molli (or black gardener) to tell me the names.”44 This lack of knowledge was excusable among amateur hobbyists but not the director of the gardens. It is also interesting that Hooker did not state the name of the Indian gardener even though he was clearly the expert in this situation. This reference to local gardeners prevails in nineteenth-century letters, but few English naturalists or botanists name these people and focus instead on the information provided by indigenous people. While most local guides, gardeners, and collectors provided extensive knowledge and specimens of local flora, they are only ever represented as servants or hired help.45 Their presence in the historical record challenges this representation, especially since botanists like Joseph Hooker purposefully acquired their help in providing local botanical knowledge. This active exclusion was most likely due to racial and gendered classifications discussed above.

Even more disconcerting than the lack of knowledge McLelland professed was the conflict of interests and goals among professional botanists in India and the larger empire as botany developed into a professional field of scientific inquiry. McLelland provides one example of how government agents, professional botanists, and independent collectors clashed with one another. He ignored the previous director’s instructions on maintaining the garden and often built additions in opposition to the East India Company’s needs for an experimentation station. Nathaniel Wallich, for instance, also collected according to his own interest and in turn shunned the directions of the East India Company, making the task of procuring funds from the company for plant collection increasingly difficult for later botanists.

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