Author: Mark Watson
Henry J. Noltie In 1805 the German botanical missionary the Rev Dr Johann Peter Rottler (1749–1836) intended to name a monospecific genus for Elizabeth, Lady Gwillim (1763–1807), wife…
H.J. Noltie Introduction While researching the life of John Hope a decade ago I went through the RBGE copies of his personal papers that have fortunately survived in…
Henry Noltie Some years ago, as part of the barter economy, I acquired a handsome, but all but empty, early nineteenth-century album, its calf spine lettered in gilt…
Henry Noltie In pursuit of interesting facts for some captions I was recently asked to write I turned to David Pearman’s fascinating account of the first records of…
Having recently been asked for a summary of Nathaniel Wallich’s plant collecting expeditions by an Indian researcher, I have compiled the following chronology. Plant material collected by Wallich…
The official establishment of the Herbarium at Trinity College Dublin is taken as 1840, with the appointment of Thomas Coulter (1793–1843) as the first Keeper and the incorporation…
His Excellency Dr Durga Bahadur Subedi, Nepalese Ambassador to the United Kingdom, led a delegation from the Embassy in London to Scotland this weekend, visiting Edinburgh, Aberdeen and…
The idea of making a contemporary version of a Thangka painting came when we were visiting Swayambhunath, the Monkey Temple, in Kathmandu. We came across a beautiful old…
RBGE staff recently returned from Kathmandu where they had met with colleagues from the Government of Nepal’s Department of Plant Resources in celebration of the historic 200-year relationship…
A celebratory exhibition of contemporary and historic plant portraits As Britain and Nepal mark 200 years of diplomatic relations, RBGE is celebrating its own unique relationship with Nepal….
Whilst visiting Nepal in late June, Mark Watson met the Rt. Hon’ble Prime Minister of Nepal, Khadga Prasad Oli, at his Residence in Baluwatar, Kathmandu. Mark was joined…
Names and Nomenclature When tracking down published scientific names, and their places of publication, IPNI, The Plant List and Tropicos are the three primary websites. The other listed…
While looking for monuments to people with Indian connections in the Dean Cemetery recently, I was intrigued to see the letters ‘FLS’ emerging from the fringes of an…
The celebration of 200 years of Nepal-UK relations was launched on 6th January 2014 with an exhibition of natural history drawings made by Dr Francis Buchanan-Hamilton in 1802-3….
Sylhet is frequently given as a collection locality in the Wallich Catalogue, but although this is a major town of NE Bangladesh, there are dangers in mechanically ascribing…
In order to maximise the scientific impact of Herbarium of the East India Company, Wallich enlisted the help of a network of European botanists to work on the…
Yesterday Mark Watson and Colin Pendry met the President of Nepal, Ram Baran Yadav, at the President’s Office in Shital Niwas, Kathmandu. During the one-hour meeting Mark and…
Throughout his catalogue of the East India Company Herbarium, Nathaniel Wallich makes reference to herbarium collections by using the abbreviations ‘Herb.’, ‘Hb.’ or simply ‘H.’ The clues to…
Since August 2012 Boris (Boriss) Lariushin has been prolifically publishing a series of illustrated botanical monographs on major plant families. The problem is that these books are plagiarised…
Nathaniel Wallich and His Catalogue From the time of his appointment as Superintendent at the Honourable East India Company’s (EIC) Botanic Garden at Sibpur near Calcutta (Kolkata) in…