Makers of British Botany; a collection of biographies by living botanists
History
Makers of British Botany; a collection of biographies by living botanists
Botanists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Botany -- Great Britain -- History
It has been necessary to consider in some detail the rapid movements
of Griffith's life in the East in order to fully appreciate the
difficulties under which his large amount of scientific work was
accomplished. The twelve years of his official life were filled with
professional duties, difficult and dangerous exploration, management of
the Botanic Gardens, and the labours entailed in making and caring for
extensive collections. It would not have been surprising had Griffith,
in spite of his attainments, contributed nothing to scientific botany
beyond rendering these collections available for other workers. He
estimated his collection of plants at more than twelve thousand
species; and on his travels he did not neglect other collections of
interest. Insects obtained by him are described, he collected the birds
and fish in every district he visited; indeed he was a keen fisherman
and must have thrown a fly in many a stream that had not been fished
before, combining sport and science.
Griffith's collections were made with the definite purpose of enabling
him, when he had leisure, to produce a general account of the Indian
flora on a geographical basis. His methods of collecting were most
enlightened and subserved his work as a morphologist and a student
of the conditions of occurrence of the plants, not merely of formal
systematic botany. The journals he kept on all expeditions are full of
references to the occurrence of the plants met with. He often adopted
a plan of roughly mapping each day's route and indicating the plants
and associations of plants, along the line of march. I wonder if modern
ecologists know of these records made long before ecology was invented?
Whenever possible he seems to have examined the morphology of the
living plants, and he fully realised the value of preserving portions
of the plants in spirit for future examination instead of relying on
herbarium material.
This quotation from a letter to Wight (then Superintending Surgeon of
the Madras Service), with whom Griffith kept up a most interesting and
friendly correspondence, from which I should like to quote largely, may
give an idea of his point of view and also show how he looked forward
to returning to Malacca:--
"If ever you go to the place of Podostemon endeavour to get some
germinating or at least very young plants. I can fancy how an
Acotyledonous plant gets a stem but how a Dicotyledonous plant loses
it, and becomes as some of them do, mere discs spread over rocks is
another thing. Then again where are their roots? How opposed to late
ideas of the absolute distinction of the three great divisions. Also
please to take a bottle of spirits, and deposit specimens in it. I
shall not be very sorry to get back to Malacca, this is a delightful
place truly, but one is interrupted, and the lectures at the Medical
College consume much time. For botany no place can exceed Malacca."
And again,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account