MillenniumPost
Features

Exploring the botanical heritage of India

Showcasing the specimens and literatures that depict some of the most crucial chapters of botanical history of India and the world, an exhibition entitled the 'Botanical Heritage of India' is going to be launched on October 27.
Being organised by The Botanical Survey of India (BSI) along with Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew at London and Centre for World Environmental History (CWEH), University of Sussex, exhibition will be held at the gallery of India International Centre, New Delhi.
It is based on the theme of Indian Natural History Collections in Botany and Meteorology and aims at helping assemble, reconsider and debate fresh frameworks for botanical and meteorological histories of the Indian Ocean region c.1500- c.2000.
It is very clear that no plants in the world are left out without any medicinal value. So, the collection of Bengali manuscripts known as Puthi, on display, is an important pointer to the existence of indigenous knowledge of plants and their medicinal values.
Infographs, prepared by Botanical Survey of India and Central National Herbarium, form an important component of the exhibition. These posters would provide a historical background of the discipline of botany through the work of William Roxburgh and Nathaniel Wallich.
The commissioned expedition of Joseph Dalton Hooker, and his subsequent publications and work in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, England as its director, was extremely important in organising the classification, preservation and distribution of plant specimens and its accompanying botanical knowledge across the world. This forms the core of the exhibition. The collection comprises of materials brought over from Kew Garden and corresponding artefacts from the archives of Botanical Survey of India. This exhibition also celebrates the life and work of an Indian Botanist Janaki Ammal Edavaleth Kakkat and puts her in her rightful place in the pantheon of botanical heritage of India. This Exhibition offers scholars and the general public in India an opportunity to view and access a rich collection of the Heritage. The exhibition will last till November 7.
Next Story
Share it