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Biographical data

 

Ja(e)ger, Herbert de

 

(Source: Flora Malesiana ser. 1, 1: Cyclopaedia of collectors)

 

Born: 1636 or 1637, Zwammerdam, Z.H., Holland. Died: Jan. 6, 1694, Batavia, Java.

 

career:

Son of a farmer, educated at Leiden University from 1656 or 1657-62; from 1663-65 clerk and secretary at Batavia; from 1666-70 in Persia, and subsequently till 1680 on the Coromandel coast, from where to Batavia again. From 1683-86 in Persia once more, and then returning to Batavia. He was the closest friend of Cleyer (see there), a correspondent of Rumphius,1 and also acquainted with Kaempfer, and N. Witsen. He finally became mentally deranged. He had a wide knowledge of oriental languages.

He is the author of some botanical papers.2

 

collections:

Like several others he evidently occasionally sent plants to J. Breyn, published by the latter.3 His correspondence with Rumphius was published by Valentijn who certainly used many posthumous papers of de Jager for his book, without mentioning it;4 several letters of de Jager in Sloane MSS, Brit. Museum.

 

literature:

(1) Several times mentioned by Rumphius in his ‘Herbarium Amboinense’ as a botanist.

(2) H. de Jaeger: ‘Observatio de herbae Indigo dictae salione, culta, etc. extractione coloris Indigo dicti circa Tsinsiam in regionibus Orientalibus’ (in Misc. Acad. Nat. Cur. Dec. II).

(3) in ‘Prodromi fasciculi rariorum plantarum’ 1739, cf. p. 7 etc.

(4) in ‘India Literata’ p. 381-420 (Appendix to M.B. Valentini, Historia simplicium reformata, Francofurti a/M. 1716), letters to and from Rumphius. This Appendix includes some extracts from MSS of de Jager too.

 

biographical data:

Bijdr. Kon. Inst. Taal-, Land- en Volkenk. reeks 2, vol. 4, 1862, p. 17-122; and l.c. reeks 3, vol. 4, 1869, p. 67-97; de Haan, Priangan, 1, 1910, personalia p. 220-224; Encyclop. N.I. 2, 1918; Ned. Kruidk. Arch. 52, 1942, p. 391; Oost en West 42, no 2, 1949, p. 10.