Passion grows here

In 1656, a young nobleman from the Dutch province of Utrecht, Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Drakenstein, joined the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and set sail for the east.

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With a sword in hand and ambition in his heart, he quickly distinguished himself in Admiral Rijckloff van Goens’s brutal campaigns against the Portuguese across Ceylon and the Malabar coast. Like many 17th-century Dutch nobles, van Rheede was a quarrelsome subordinate. Yet his boldness on the battlefield earned him rapid promotions—first as sergeant major of Ceylon, then as commander of Malabar.

Though not formally trained in botany, van Rheede developed a deep fascination with the exotic flora he encountered beyond the Cape of Good Hope—in Batavia, Ceylon and, most strikingly, Malabar. To him, Malabar (the entire stretch of the Kerala coastline was then referred to as the “Malabar coast” by foreign traders) was a botanical treasure chest. He was captivated by the giant woody climbers and vast banyan trees— sacred to the Malabaris—that loomed like natural cathedrals over the land. Equally impressive were the Malabaris themselves, whose intimate knowledge of local flora allowed them to craft an astonishing array of herbal medicines in the ayurvedic tradition.

Unlike most colonial officers, van Rheede grew fond of the land and developed a close relationship with local rulers of Kerala such as the raja of Cochin. The fact that van Rheede had saved the life of the king’s mother during the 1662 battle in Fort Cochin likely strengthened their friendship.

Documenting the rich plant diversity of Malabar with the precision expected by European standards became an enduring passion for van Rheede. According to the late botanist H.Y. Mohan Ram, his motivation was not purely scientific—there was also a political dimension. Van Rheede believed Malabar was self-sufficient in both military and commercial terms and considered Cochin—captured by the Dutch from the Portuguese in 1663—a more strategic choice than Colombo for the VOC's Southeast Asian headquarters.