Robert Wight ( 1796 - 1872 )

Twelve years after William Roxburgh's introduction of the first living specimens of East Indian vandas ,aerides , and dendrobiums into England ,a young Scottish physician named Robert Wight was sent to Madras as surgeon to a native regiment .The floral riches of India attracted him soon thereafter -to the extent that he was eventually to provide an extensive description of that country's flora , orchids being prominent in his work.

Robert Wight was born at Milton , Duncra Hill, East Lothian , Scotland , on 6 July 1796 , son of a writer to the Signet in Edinburgh . The twelfth of a family of fourteen , young Wight was educated at the Edinburgh High School and professionally at Edinburgh High School and professionally at Edinburgh University , where he took a medical degree in 1816 .

After one or two voyages as a ship's surgeon in 1819 he went to India , where he was first assistant surgeon and later full surgeon of the 33rd Regiment of Native Infantry in the East India Company's service. His botanical propensities must have been eminent even then , for within three years he was transferred to Madras , where he was given charge of the Botanic Gardens and afterward appointed naturalist to the East Inia Company . While at the Botanic Gardens , from 1826 to 1828 , he made extensive collections during a tour of the southern provinces of India , sending Sir William Hooker (then at Glasgow) a large number of plants collected in Madras .Because his primary duties were as a medical officer , he was never liberally supported by the government of Madras , so it was mostly by his own resources that he made botanical collections and later published his work.

In 1828 the government discontinued his post at the Botanic Gardens and reassigned him to regimental duties as garrison surgeon at Negapatam . Here he accumulated another great assortment of plants which he distributed in 1832-1833 to various scientific organizations in Europe. Meanwhile , in 1831 he went on sick leave to England where , in collaboration with Dr .G. Walker -Arnott , he prepared the Prodromus Florae Peninsulae Indiae Orientalis , which described nearly 1400 species .This natural system was used . Unfortunately ,Dr. Walker -Arnott died before the work was completed , and thus only one volume came into being .

Wight returned in 1834 to India ,where he served an additional two years in the Indian army -not , however, without continueing a diligent study of Indian plants .As a matter of fact , his collections grew so large that it often took several carts to carry them on a march.All the while his sights were on the complication and publication of an extensive and illustrated work on the plants of India .

Leaving the army in 1836, Wight took a position with the Revenue Department , where he supervised the growing of cotton , tobaco ,and other products.

In 1838 his Illustrations of Indian Botany wa commenced ,followed soon thereafter by the Icons Plantarum Indiae Orientalis , a work of fifteen years duration .Six volumes were published , comprising 2101 uncolored figures . Volume 3 contained thirty-six descriptions and illustrations of orchids .Some of the drawings are copies of those made in Calcutta by Roxburgh; some are by native artists laboriously trained by Wight to draw and lithograph ; and some are by himself . In volume 5 he remarked that " ... to master these , however , is a work demanding both time and patience on the part of the inquirer. Being well aware of this , as well as of the interest which attaches to this order , I have been induced , at the risk of falling into many blunders , to devote an ususually large space of this work to its elucidation even at this late stage of my progress." In it ,species of the following genera were illustrated : Arundina ,Oberonia , Dienia ,Microstylis , Liparis , Eria , Coelogyne , Dendrobium , Bulbophyllum , Cirrhopetalum , Phaius , Ipsea , Eulophia , Aerides , Vanda , Saccolabium , Polystachya , Diplocentrum ,Sarcanthsu , Aeceolades , Cymbidium , Cyrtopera ,Aceras , Platanthera , Peristylis , Habenaria , Satyrium , Diseris ,Cephalanthera , Epipactis ,Spiranthes ,Zeuxine,Cheirostylis , monochilus ,Goodyera , Anoectochilus , Euphrobosces ,Mycaranthes , Phreatea , Oxysepala , Aggeianthus , Lichinora , Brombeadia , Chiloshista , Josephia , Acriopsis , Podochilus , pattonia ,Cytheris ,Cottonia , Taeniophllum, Cryptochilus , Apetalon, Pogonia , podanthera , Cypripedium, and Cullenia.

Early in his studies Wight saw that the Linnean system was insufficient for the classification of Indian plants and , by a clear perception of affinities and a most significant interpretation of structures , he gave worthy evidence of being far above the level of a mere descriptive botanist. Owing to his background of experience in horticultural work , he advanced the idea that extratropical plants within the tropics could be acclimatized by self-hybridization ,thus modifying their needs so as to adapt them to successful culture in higher temperatues than found in their native haibtats-a view supported by proof at later dates in a number of plant families .

Though somewhat isolated from the great botanical institutions ,Dr. Wight was in constant communication with the leading European botanists and on terms of warmest friendship with the Hookers , John Lindley, Walker -Arnott ,and others .To those and his friends , he endeared himself by his great congeniality enriched by the contribution of Wight's plants and notes through the years.

Wight retired from public service in 1853 and returned to England , where he managed a sixty-acre farm and ,together with a Dr, Waring , assisted as well in the editing of a pharmacopoedia for India .

As Wight advanced in years , failing health prevented him from working ,but he contnued to foster the interests of those engaged in botanical studies . In 1871 he generously presented his Indian herbarium to Kew .It contained all his type specimens and consisted of more than 4000 species.

At the age of seventy -six , on 26 May 1872 , he died at his country residence near Reading , England , leaving a window , four sons, and a daughter.

A personal of Wight's separately published works to various scientific journals would include Hooker's Botanical Miscellany and Journal of Botany ,Companion to the Botanical Magazine ,Madras Journal of the Indian Agricultural Society ,Calcutta Journal of Science, Annals of Natural History ,Edinburgh Philosophical Journal , Journal of the Indian Agricultural Society ,Calcutta Journal of Natural History ,and Gardener's Chronicle. A list of his communications may be found in the Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific Memoirs.

Orchid species bearing Dr. Wight's name are Aerides wightianum ,Doritis wightii, and Saccolabium wightianum.

References

Curtis' Botanical Magazine. 1931.Dedications and Portraits 1827-1927 . Compiled by Earnest Nelmes and Wm. Cuthbertson .London: Bernard Quaritch Ltd .

Gardener's Chronicle. 1872.The Late Dr. Robert Wight ,F.R.S. vol . 50 , no. 22.

Gray ,Asa. 1873.Scientific Papers .Amer. journ of science and Arts 5 ,ser .3

King Sir George . 1899.The Early History of Indian botany . journ.of Bot. 37, no. 443.