William Roxburgh known as the "Father of Indian Botany", was the first post- Linnean Botanist to describe plants fully and accurately in the form of a Flora. Roxburgh not only described the plants he observed but also got splendidly coloured drawings made of most of them. William Roxburgh was born at Underwood in Ayrshire on 3rd June, 1751. He was a student of Prof. Hope. After obtaining the medical degree from Edinburgh University, Roxburgh came to India in 1776 in the service of the Honourable East India Company and served in India until 1813. Soon after arriving in India Roxburgh started studying and methodically describing all native plants, which he collected or brought by others for him and at the same time he nearly always had a life size colour drawing of the plant complete with floral dissections made through local artists. He worked under Dr. Koenig at Madras Presidency for seventeen years and later in 1793 he joined the East India Company Garden, Calcutta as its first salaried Superintendent. As the Superintendent of Calcutta Botanic Garden, his salary was fixed at Rs. 1500 per month, (some f 1,800 p a). The outbreak of war with France in 1793 did not slow down the development of the Garden. The Government built a house for Roxburgh in 1795 at the cost of Rs. 15,000 on the bank of the river Hooghly. The East India Company Garden, Calcutta under the stewardship of Roxburgh from 1793 to 1813 became the premier centre of plant taxonomy research in India. Roxburgh maintained a Plants-inwards record and in 1814 when Roxburgh left India due to his ill health, this record was transformed into his "Hortus Bengalensis", which was printed out from the Serampore Press with the help of William Carey. As a garden catalogue it enlisted the names of about 60 donors or friends of the Garden who sent unknown or new plants for study or ornamental or economically useful plants and seeds to Roxburgh. In the garden as soon as he was informed about that so- and- so plant had come to flower, Roxburgh would himself go and collect the desired material required for identification, description and drawing. In 1800, the East India Company permitted Roxburgh's son William "to proceed to assist his father in his botanical researches" in Calcutta on a salary of Rs.250 per month.

Roxburgh described nearly 2,600 plant species and had more than 2,500 colour drawings made of them. Roxburgh used to number each description in the sequence it was written and gave the same number to the drawing he had made of the described plant. He also used to send the copies of descriptions and drawings to the Court of Directors of the Honourable East India Company who later selected 300 Roxburgh's descriptions and drawings and published as the 'Plants of the Coast of Coromandel' under the direction of Sir Joseph Banks during the period between May, 1795 to March, 1820 in three volumes having 12 parts (each part with 25 plates). Another set of 400 drawings of Roxburgh were published in Wight's "Icones Plantarum lndiae Orientalis". Thus only 700 colour drawings out of 2,500, which Roxburgh had made were published. The manuscript presented by Roxburgh's son to KEW in 1872 comprises of 3379 foolscap pages bound in three volumes and contains 2579 numbered descriptions, starting with "No. 1-Terminalia chebula Linn." and ending with " No. 2579- Davallia chinensis R." Although Roxburgh in his thirty-seven years of service (1776-1813) contributed so much for the Indian botany but there are hardly few herbarium specimens of Roxburgh available at CAL (Central National Roxburgh's health deteriorated during the hot season of 1813, and he undertook a sea journey to Cape of Good Hope to recuperate but his health did not improve and from the Cape of Good Hope he went to St. Helena. He stayed here from 7 June, 1813 to February, 1814 and after he sailed to England. In England he started preparing the Flora Indica manuscript for press but his ill health did not permit to do so and he died in his house at Park Place, Edinburgh on 18th February, 1815 at the age of 64 and was buried in the Grey Friars Churchyard. The 'Flora Indica' manuscript edited by William Carey was published after the death of Roxburgh. Roxburgh's earlier collections from Carnatic were destroyed by an inundation and his all, later collections were distributed in Europe by Wallich along with his own collections. One of his largest collections known as 'ROXBURGH HERBARIUM', is in the Delessert Herbarium at Geneva and consists of about 2000 to 2250 plants of Indian Archipelago and Continental India and South Africa. The authentic collection of Roxburgh's plants is in the possession of the Linnean Society of London.