Richard Henry Beddome Colonel Richard Henry Beddome ( 11 May 1830 – 23 February 1911 ) was a British military officer in India , chief conservator of the Madras Forest Department and a naturalist . He described many species of plants and reptiles from India , and several species described by others bear his name . Early life . He was the eldest son of Richard Boswell Brandon Beddome , solicitor , of Clapham Common , S . W . He was educated at Charterhouse School . He first studied for the legal profession , but he could not get interested in it and preferred a life abroad . Military career . He entered the Army , obtaining a direct cadetship in 1848 in the East India Company ' s service , and sent to India was posted to the 42nd Madras Native Infantry He was with that regiment at Jabalpur in 1856 , serving as Quartermaster and Interpreter of the regiment , and from there he went to Secunderabad . Soon after his arrival at Madras , at the end of 1856 , he was appointed to the Madras Forest Department , and never rejoined his regiment . The following are dates of his commissions : Ensign 20 January 1848 ; Lieutenant l0 November 1853 ; Captain 18 February 1861 ; Major 20 January 1868 ; Lieut . - Colonel 20 January 1874 ; Colonel 20 January 1879 . Madras Forest Department . In 1857 he was selected on account of his devotion to botany and natural history as an assistant to Dr . Hugh Cleghorn , the first conservator of the newly formed Forest Department of the Madras Presidency . He succeeded Cleghorn in 1859 and remained Chief Conservator until 1882 . Botanist , herpetologist , malacologist . He became a member of the University of Madras in 1880 . He made many floral studies in India and Ceylon including " Trees of the Madras Presidency " in 1863 and " Handbook of the ferns of British India , Ceylon and Malaya Peninsula " in 1892 . He also studied reptiles , amphibians and mollusc s . Colonel Beddome was essentially a botanist . In the study of the flora of South India he devoted the best days of his life . The result was the publication of a series of valuable works containing figures of many species . The drawings were executed with great accuracy by the native draughtsmen he had trained to draw . More of his botanical publications are : " Flora Sylvatica fur Southern India " , 1869 – 73 ; " Ferns of Southern India " , 1873 ; " Ferns of British India " , 1876 ; " Forester ' s Manual of Botany for Southern India " , 1869 – 74 ; " Icones Plantarum Indies Orientalis " , 1874 . On Reptilia and Batrachia he wrote at least fifteen papers , and described over 40 new species of reptiles and amphibians . The following is a complete list of his papers on Mollusca : " Descriptions of some new Operculated Land - shells from Southern India and Ceylon " , 1S75 . " Descriptions of Land - shells from the lsland of Koror , Pelew Group " , 1889 . " Descriptions of some new Land - shells from the Indian Region " , 1891 . " Notes on Indian and Ceylonese species of Glessula " , 1906 . " Descriptions of Labyrinthus cuclausus and Neocyclotus Belli , n . spp . , from Colombia " , 1908 and in conjunction with H . H . Godwin - Austen : " New species of Cyclophorus and a Spiraculum from the Khasi and Naga Hills , Assam " . Beddome first published and described of over 1 , 000 species of animals and plants . Beddome formed a fine collection of land shells from India and other parts of the world , among which the minute forms were his favourites . His collection of specimens was presented to the British Museum at difficult times , and some specimens were also left with the Indian Museum at Calcutta . He retired in 1892 and died at Wandsworth . South London , Eponymous species . Some of the species named in honor of him are listed below :