Geschiedenis van de eerste hortus medicus in Indië

Abstract

History of the first botanical garden in the East Indies In the mid-eighteenth century the Dutch East India Company (VOC) took the first steps to set up a Hortus Medicus in Asia. The aim of this garden was to improve the health of the VOC- servants with the use of native plant species. Under the direction of the governor-general of the Netherlands Indies, Baron G.W. van Imhoff (1705 - 1750) preparations were made, but his successor J. Mossel (1704 - 1761) actually founded the Hortus at Batavia (Jacarta). Christiaan Kleynhoff (x - 1777), a member of the medical staff, designed and held supervision over the garden. The structure and position of this botanical garden is discussed on the basis of the catalogue of plants, which shows that the Hortus was set up according to the sexual system of C. Linnaeus, to whom Kleynhoff also sent plants and seeds. In a couple of years the Hortus Medicus, which existed from ca 1757 up till ca 1762, grew into a collection of more than a thousand plant species. This garden must be considered as the first botanical garden founded bij Europeans in Asia. Governor-general P.A. van der Parra (1714-1775) sold the garden to a private individual one year after Mossel's death. 35.