Robert Wight and the Botanical Drawings of Rungiah and Govindoo. 3 volumes. 2007. 290 coloured illus. 43 b/w illustr. 512 p. 4to. Paper bd. - In slipcase.

Book 1 · The Life and Work of Robert Wight/Book 2 · Botanical Drawings by Rungiah &Govindoo: the Wight Collection/Book 3 · Journeys in Search of Robert Wight -This trilogy forms the second in a series of illustratedworks devoted to collections of botanical drawingsmade by Indian artists for Scottish surgeon-botanists,held in the library of the Royal Botanic GardenEdinburgh. In the central volume are reproducedsome 200 of the drawings commissioned between1826 and 1853 by Robert Wight (17961872) from theartists Rungiah and Govindoo. The first volumedocuments Wights life and work as an East IndiaCompany surgeon and his major contributions totaxonomy and economic botany. The third volume is atravelogue, describing the author's journeys in searchof Wight in Britain and India.A fascinating tale emerges of the exploration of theSouth Indian flora, and of the workings of the EastIndia Company who were always on the look out forpotentially exploitable natural resources. While mostof Wight's botanical work (including the commissioningof the drawings) was done in his leisure time, andpaid for from his own pocket, the Company from 1835employed him as an economic botanist, and for tenyears he was in charge of an experiment on thecultivation of long-staple American cotton basedaround Coimbatore. Wight employed local plantcollectors who travelled widely through South India,often accompanied by an artist. These journeys tookthem through what are now the states of Tamil Nadu,Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. Many of the resultingcollections are held in the Royal Botanic GardenEdinburgh, where Wight studied botany in 1816 and1817 these include some 23, 000 herbarium specimensand 700 original drawings.In 2005 the taxonomic part of the project was publishedas The Botany of Robert Wight. This dealt with thetaxonomy and nomenclature of Wights more than1200 new species and 100 new genera, and won the2005 Stafleu Medal awarded by the InternationalAssociation of Plant Taxonomists.The purpose of the present work is to make thesewonderful drawings (only eight of which have ever beenpublished in colour) available to a wider audience: theyrepresent a fascinating and important part of theshared culture of Britain and India.