Samuel Browne's late 17th century Indian herbarium: identifications and early modern taxonomic practice

Samuel Browne (21st December 1698) was a surgeon employed by the English East India Company (EIC) at Fort St. George, Madras (now Chennai) in India. In 1697, Browne sent a herbarium of 316 specimens collected in and around Chennai to the EIC. Many of those specimens were accompanied with vernacular names, descriptions and notes on their properties and uses. Browne's specimens were studied by James Petiver who published descriptions with Browne as co-author. Those descriptions made reference to polynomial names in many other published works. In this paper we present a description of the Browne herbarium and identifications for all specimens, with 313 of the 316 specimens identified to species level. We also examine how knowledge from the specimens sent by Browne was integrated with existing knowledge in published works. We show that specimens with a medicinal or other use recorded by Browne were more extensively referenced to other literature than those with no use documented, likely reflecting the fact that plants with documented uses were more likely to have been studied previously. Contrary to our expectations, we found no difference in the extent of referencing to other works when comparing widespread species with species endemic to the Indian subcontinent. The ethnobotanical information recorded in Browne's herbarium, used in conjunction with the identifications provided in this paper, provides a unique resource for understanding plants in 17th century Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.