James Anderson (botanist)

[2] He was educated at Ratho school, where his friend James Anderson (1739-1808) who founded the journal, The Bee, also went to, before studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh where his teachers included Professor William Cullen.

[5] Interested in medicinal plants and horticulture, he set up a botanical garden at Mambalam (or Marmalong) where Anderson introduced mulberry trees, bastard cedar (Guazuma ulmifolia),[6] and experimented with making silk[7] and lac.

[18] He examined the eye worm of horses[19] and described a case of epigastric heteropagus conjoint twins which was illustrated by Thomas Reichel.

Ellis is thought to have created a Sanskrit verse that purportedly described the vaccine and a fake notice under an Indian pseudonym Calvi Virumbom was inserted into the Madras Courier,[23] a local newspaper and the "discovery" was then propagated widely.

In 1786 James Anderson wrote to Joseph Banks about scale insects found in Madras that appeared to be similar to cochineal that he identified as Kermes.

At that time cochineal imports into Britain were about 200000 pounds per annum and the court of the East India Company was immediately interested.

However Banks decided that the Spanish cochineal should be able to grow in Madras given the similar latitudes and he asked Anderson to organize a nopalry (Opuntia garden, Opuntia was earlier called Nopalea cochenillifera from which the term Nopalery or Nopalry is derived) in Mambalam ("Marmalon") with a grant of 2000 pounds from the Committee of Secrecy of the East India Company.

Attempts to transport cochineal insects failed until a Captain R. Neilson collected some specimens at Rio de Janeiro and reached Diamond Harbour aboard the Contractor on 15 September 1794.

Anderson also learned of Opuntia growing in the vicinity of Mylapore locally called naga kalli which had been brought in by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century.

Anderson's nopalry was heavily damaged in the cyclone of 1807 and overgrown in 1808 when the last surviving Opuntia was noted by Maria Graham.