page_title: K. S. Manilal
section_title: Botanical and medicinal aspects of Hortus Malabaricus
hierarchical_section_title: K. S. Manilal / Major research and academic achievements / Botanical and medicinal aspects of Hortus Malabaricus
caption_attribution_description: Cover of Hortus malabaricus
context_page_description: Professor Kattungal Subramaniam Manilal is an Emeritus of the University of Calicut, a botany scholar and taxonomist, who devoted over 35 years of his life to research, translation and annotation work of the Latin botanical treatise Hortus Malabaricus. This epic effort brought to light the main contents of the book, a wealth of botanical information on Malabar that had largely remained inaccessible to English-speaking scholars, because the entire text was in the Latin language.
  In January 2020, Professor K S Manilal was conferred with the Padma Shri award, the fourth-highest civilian honour of India, for his contribution in the field of Science and Engineering.
  Despite the existence of Hendrik van Rheede's Hortus Malabaricus over the last three centuries, the correct taxonomic identity of many plants listed in Hortus Malabaricus, their medicinal properties, methods of use, etc., as described and codified by renowned traditional medical authorities of 17th century India remained inaccessible to English language based scholars, until Dr. Manilal commenced publication of research papers and books on Hortus Malabaricus.
  Dr.
context_section_description: As Hortus Malabaricus is a pre-Linnaean book, the scientific names of plants, equivalent to local Malayalam names, were not included. Since voucher specimens for the book are also not known to exist, the correct identity of many of the plants described was unclear and not verifiable to original specimens. Earlier attempts, over three centuries, by European and Indian botanists to correctly identify all specimens were futile. Under two research projects; one sponsored by the U.G.C. (1975–1978) and the other by the Smithsonian Institution (1984–1987), Dr. Manilal collected all plants, described in Hortus Malabaricus, from localities in Malabar from where they were originally collected in the 17th century. Specimens were subjected to detailed studies and their correct identities were established in consultation with research institutes in Europe and USA. Based on this work, initially a concise reference book: An Interpretation of Van Rheede's Hortus Malabaricus, was published (with his collaborators) from Berlin (1988), by the IAPT. This remains the only book by Indian authors published by them (IAPT) till date and is an essential resource in study on the taxonomy of Southeast Asian plants.
caption: Frontispiece of the original Latin Hortus Malabaricus
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