ROXBURGH, WILLIAM, M.D., a medi officer of the Madras army, in the service4.1 the E. I. Company, who was their botanist in the Carnatic, and subsequently in charge of the gardens in Calcutta. He entered the Madras Service 1766, and died in 1815. He was author of Coromandel Plants, and of the Flora Indica. The former work was published by the order of the E. I. Company, in three folio volumes, under the direction of Sir Joseph Banks, Bart., in 1793 and 1816, with three hundred colourell plates, and it was the first contributiou of the British Indian Government to the illustration of botanical science. His Flora Indica remained in manuscript for some years after his death. Two editions of it have since that event been published ; one, which is incomplete, was edited by Drs. Carey and Wallich ; it extends to the end of Pentandria Monogynia, but contains many additional plants not contained in Roxburgh's manuscript ; the other, which is an exact reprint of the manuscript as left by its author, is in three volumes, and was published in 1832. A new edition of this appeared in 1878? Ile also published the Hortus Bengalensis and Catalogue of the Calcutta Garden. He was the first to describe fully, accurately, and reduce to the form of flora, according to the Linnasan systeni, the botanical riches of the east. During the earlier part of his career he resided in the Peninsula, particularly about Samulcottah, where he had ample opportunities of examining the bottuay of the neighbouring Circar mountains.
In the autumn of 1793, he was removed to the superintendence of the Company's Botanic Garden in Calcutta. Here he remained till 1814, adding new descriptions to his manuscript, when illness compelled him to return by the Cape and SL Helena to England. During his lifethne there appeared from his pen,—Plants of the Coast of Coromandel, fol., 3 vols., Lond. 1795-1819; Hortus Bengalensis, or a Catalogue of the Plants growing in the East India Company's Botanic Garden at Calcutta, edited by Wm, Carey, 8vo, Serampur 1814: and in the Asia.tie Researches—Essays on the Lac Insect (ii. p. 361); on the Butea Plant (lii. 369) ; on the Prosopis Aculeata (iv. p. 405) ; on the Spike nard of the Ancients (iv. p. 432) ; on the Caout choue of Penang (v. p. 167) ; on a New Species of Delphinus (vii. p. 170) ; on the Monandrous Plauts of India (xi. p. 318). And after his death, there were published, his Flora Indica, or De scriptions of Indian Plants, with Descriptions of Plants more recently discovered, edited by N. Wallich and Dr. Carey, 2 vols. 8vo, Serampur 1820 ; Flora Indica, or Description of Indian Plants, 3 vols. 8vo, edited by Dr. Carey, Scram pur 1832.