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Article

What’s in a name? William Jones, ‘philological empiricism’ and botanical knowledge making in eighteenth-century India

Figures & data

Figure 1. Lectotype of Valeriana jatamansi Jones. Engraving from Asiatick Researches (1790) (Calcutta edition)

The figure shows a true Valeriana with heart-shaped leaves. It does not show the fibrous leaf bases, the distinguishing marker of the Jatamansi. The shading at the base of the leaves is a flourish added by the artist.
Figure 1. Lectotype of Valeriana jatamansi Jones. Engraving from Asiatick Researches (1790) (Calcutta edition)

Figure 2. Valeriana jatamansi Jones (watercolour on paper) Roxburgh No. 1017 William Roxburgh, Flora Indica. Flora Indica http://apps.kew.org/floraindica

In this painting ‘Fig 3’ represents Roxburgh’s ‘cobbled-together monster’, the roots and the spike-like body which resemble an ‘ermine’s tail’, with the image of Valeriana jatamansi Jones added on top. Roxburgh’s notes indicate that Fig. 3, the ‘principal figure’ and its description and definition are extracted from the engraving and description from Asiatick Researches Volume II (Figure 1 in this article), and the information conveyed to him by Burt. Figs. 1, 4 and 2 (above) are representations of what Roxburgh observed of the plants growing in the Calcutta Botanic Garden before they perished.
Figure 2. Valeriana jatamansi Jones (watercolour on paper) Roxburgh No. 1017 William Roxburgh, Flora Indica. Flora Indica http://apps.kew.org/floraindica