page_title: Georg Eberhard Rumphius
section_title: Herbarium Amboinense
hierarchical_section_title: Georg Eberhard Rumphius / Herbarium Amboinense
caption_attribution_description: coconut crab plate from D'Amboinsche Rariteitkamer by Rumphius described as Cancer crumenatus, now Birgus latro
context_page_description: Georg Eberhard Rumphius was a German-born botanist employed by the Dutch East India Company in what is now eastern Indonesia, and is best known for his work Herbarium Amboinense produced in the face of severe personal tragedies, including the death of his wife and a daughter in an earthquake, going blind from glaucoma, loss of his library and manuscripts in major fire, and losing early copies of his book when the ship carrying it was sunk. In addition to his major contributions to plant systematics, he is also remembered for his skills as an ethnographer and his frequent defense of Ambonese peoples against colonialism.
context_section_description: Rumphius is best known for his authorship of Het Amboinsche kruidboek or Herbarium Amboinense, a catalogue of the plants of the island of Amboina (in modern-day Indonesia), published posthumously in 1741. The work covers 1,200 species, 930 with definite species names, and another 140 identified to genus level. The publication of this book was possible because of the governor Johannes Camphuys. Camphuys, an amateur astronomer, personally reviewed the manuscript and ensured a copy was made before the ill-fated manuscript was sent off to Europe for printing. Rumphius provided illustrations and descriptions for nomenclature types for 350 plants, and his material contributed to the later development of the binomial scientific classification by Linnaeus. His book provided the basis for all future study of the flora of the Moluccas and his work is still referred to today. Despite the distance, he was in communication with scientists in Europe, was a member of a scientific society in Vienna, and even sent a collection of Moluccan sea shells to the Medicis in Tuscany. 
  After going blind in 1670 due to glaucoma, Rumphius continued work on his six-volume manuscript with the help of others. His wife and a daughter were killed by a wall collapse during a major earthquake and tsunami on 17 February 1674. On 11 January 1687, with the project nearing completion, a great fire in the town destroyed his library, numerous manuscripts, original illustrations for his Herbarium Amboinense, volumes of the Hortus Malabaricus, and works by Jacobus Bontius. Persevering, Rumphius and his helpers first completed the book in 1690, but the ship carrying the manuscript to the Netherlands was attacked and sunk by the French, forcing them to start over from a copy that had fortunately been retained thanks to Camphuys. The Herbarium Amboinense finally arrived in the Netherlands in 1696. However, "the East India Company decided that it contained so much sensitive information that it would be better not to publish it." Rumphius died in 1702, so he never saw his work in print; the embargo was lifted in 1704, but then no publisher could be found for it. It finally appeared in 1741, thirty-nine years after Rumphius's death through the work of Johannes Burman (1707–79) who translated it into Latin. Much of the natural history in Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën ("Old and New East-India") by François Valentijn was by Rumphius and they were close friends.
  The Herbarium Amboinense as published in 1741 consisted of six large folio volumes. Being blind, Rumphius required the assistance of others to produce it. His wife, Suzanna, was one of the early assistants and she was commemorated in Flos Suzannae a white orchid (now Pecteilis susannae) described by Rumphius. His son Paul August made many of the plant illustrations as also the only known portrait of Rumphius. Other assistants included Philips van Eyck, a draughtsman, Daniel Crul, Pieter de Ruyter a soldier trained by Van Eyck, Johan Philip Sipman, Christiaen Gieraerts J. Hoogeboom An English translation, which took seven years to make by E. M. Beekman, was posthumously published in 2011.
  Among the many species described in the Herbarium was the Upas tree (Antiaris toxicaria), the toxicity of the tree was exaggerated and caught the fancy of Europeans. Other plants included a description of the clove, the starfruit and durian. Rumphius used multinomial names and his descriptions were largely missed by Linnaeus as he received it after he had worked on Species Plantarum. Rumphius was the first to interpret the function of the pitchers in pitcher plants. He also discovered that some mosquitoes bred in their pools. He also analysed edible nest swiftlets and came to the conclusion that the substance was produced by the swiftlets and not marine algae as had been earlier believed.
  The other major work D'Amboinsche Rariteitkamer ("Amboinese Cabinet of Curiosities"), a manuscript he had sent to Dr Hendrik D'Acquet of Delft in 1701 consisted mainly of plates of seashells and crabs.
  After Rumphius' death, his son Paul August was app
caption: The coconut crab illustrated in D'Amboinsche Rariteitkamer
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