Lectures on Botany, as Delivered to His Pupils, Author of the Flora Londinensis, Botanical Magazine, &c. &c. Part of which was published several Years since, Under the Title of A Companion to the Botanical Magazine. Arranged by SAMUEL CURTIS. Florist, Walworth.

Printed and Sold by William Phillips, George Yard, Lombard Street. 1803-1804-1805. 3 volumes. 8vo.. pp. (iv), 131, (i) blank. Aquatint portrait frontispiece, 48 hand-coloured engraved plates (adjacent to plate XXI there is an interpolated plate of a Rose, engraved and hand-coloured, published by Curtis, dated 1788, without the signature of either Sydenham Edwards, artist, or F. Sansom, engraver, without an explanatory text leaf); (iv), 114, (i) Directions to Binder, (i) blank. 48 hand-coloured engraved plates; (i) Title, (i) Advertisement, 63, (i) blank. 24 hand-coloured engraved plates. TOTAL plates : 120. All plates have an explanatory unpaginated text leaf. Contemporary marbled boards now very rubbed, all volumes rebacked, corners repaired, scattered foxing and occasional marginal mark, signature of JOHN ROYLE at the top margin of the title-pages [see NOTES below]. *William Curtis '... was obliged to superintend the Garden and Library at Chelsea and to encourage the knowledge of botany. Instruction continued to be of paramount importance and Curtis was to demonstrate plants, their names and uses to the apprentices at least once a month between April and September. He was also to conduct the students on five herbarizings in summer, 'preserving strict decorum', to prepare and organize the general herbarizing for members of the Society and their guests, to devise other methods of instruction if he could, to attend meetings of the Garden Committee, to pursue an extensive correspondence at home and abroad, to enlarge and improve the Garden, to prepare the fifty specimens annually for the Royal Society and to dry another twenty for the late Mr. Rand's collection. These responsibilities proved overwhelming. [He] resigned in 1777.' From PENELOPE HUNTING A History of the Society of Apothecaries. 1998. Page 136. Curiously, the above title was not listed in the Catalogue of the Library of the Society in 1913 though SUE MINTER Apothecaries' Garden, 2001, does include the portrait above, 'Courtesy of the Chelsea Physic Garden Company', see page 57. See also FREEMAN British Natural History Books, #889. JOHN FORBES ROYLE (10 May 1798 – 2 January 1858), British botanist and teacher of materia medica, was born in Kanpur (then Cawnpore) in 1798. He was in charge of the botanical garden at Saharanpur and played a role in the development of economic botany in India. Royle studied under Sangster of Haddington before going to study at Edinburgh high school. He was influenced by Anthony Todd Thomson to take an interest in botany and natural history. This led him to give up a military career at Addiscombe and choose to study medicine. He joined the service of the East India Company as assistant surgeon and went to Calcutta in 1819. He served with the Bengal army (at various times with the 17th and 87th Regiments, Native Artillery, Cavalry and Infantry) at Dum-Dum and in parts of the North-Western Provinces where he found time to study botany and geology, and made large collections from the Himalayas. In 1823 Royle was appointed as Superintendent of the botanical garden at Saharanpur which had been established by the East India Company in 1750 with the aim of promoting the introduction of new crops of commercial value. Royle was assisted by Hugh Falconer who also took an interest in palaeontology. One of Royle's major interests was in the traditional botanical remedies used by Hindu medical practitioners based on which he would later write On the Antiquity of Hindu Medicine (1837). He noted the effectiveness of many of these remedies. He also began a scheme of recording weather data at Saharanpur and retired from service in 1831; he returned to England but continued to publish several books. Royle succeeded John Ayrton Paris in 1836 as professor of materia medica at King's College London, a position he held till 1856. He became a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1833 and the Royal Society in 1837. He made use of his collections to publish his Illustrations of the botany and other branches of the natural history of the Himalayan mountains (2 vols., 1839). In this work he suggested the introduction of cinchona to India stating that in "the Neelgherries a favourable site might without doubt be found for the cinchona". In 1851 he superintended the Indian department of the Great Exhibition. In 1852, his recommendation for the introduction of cinchona was approved by the Lord Dalhousie, governor-general of India. Royle produced a report on this in 1853 but work began only in 1860, two years after Royle's death at Acton near London on 2 January 1858. The work on which Royle's reputation chiefly rests is the Illustrations of the Botany and other branches of Natural History of the Himalayan Mountains, and of the Flora of Cashmere, in 2 vols. begun in 1839. In addition he took a special interest in fibre yielding crops such as cotton in his 'On the Culture and Commerce of Cotton in India and Elsewhere' (1851) and 'The Fibrous Plants of India fitted for Cordage' (1855), together with papers in scientific journals. He contributed most of the plant entries in "The Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature" edited by John Kitto. Royle suggested the idea of state protection for forests in his 'Essay on the Productive Resources of India' (1840). The plant genus Roylea and Royle's pika (Ochotona roylei) are named after him.