Herbarium Amboinense

Tab. LXXVII from Volume 5: Cannabis indica male (Fig. 1, "Ginji Lacki Lacki") and female/Ginji Papoua (Fig. 2)

Het Amboinsche Kruid-boek

The Amboinese Herbal

Herbarium Amboinense

Publication

Author	Georg Eberhard Rumphius(1627–1702)
Editor	Johannes Burman
Language	Latin, Dutch
Composed	c. 1690
Published	1741–1750
Publisher	Changuion, Uytwerf & Catuffe
Place	Amsterdam
Volumes	6 (plus 1 supplement, 1755)

Cannabis Content

Volume	5
Pages	208–211
Chapter	XXXIV — De Indische Hennip (Indian Hemp)
Plates	Tab. LXXVII
Regions documented	Ambon, Java, Papua
Varieties described	Ginji Lacki Lacki (male), unnamed female, Ginji Papoua
Preparations	Smoked with tobacco; Majub (edible compound); leaf tea; juice with betel; aphrodisiac seed preparation
Uses documented	Medicinal, recreational, aphrodisiac, military
Taxonomic significance	First published use of the name Cannabis indica

Access

Digital facsimile	View on BHL
Original held at	Leiden University Libraries (MS BPL 314)
Modern translation	Beekman, E.M. (2011). The Ambonese Herbal, vols. 1–6. Yale University Press

The Herbarium Amboinense (full Latin title: Herbarium Amboinense, plurimas complectens arbores, frutices, herbas, plantas terrestres & aquaticas...; Dutch: Het Amboinsche Kruid-boek) is a six-volume botanical catalogue of the plants of Ambon Island in the Maluku Islands of Indonesia, composed by the German-born naturalist Georg Eberhard Rumphius (1627–1702) during his decades of service with the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Published posthumously in Amsterdam between 1741 and 1750, the work described approximately 1,200 species and laid the foundation for all subsequent study of the flora of the Moluccas.

For the purposes of cannabis documentation and landrace conservation, the Herbarium Amboinense is significant as the earliest published source to use the name Cannabis indica, predating Lamarck's formal taxonomic description of 1785 by more than four decades. Chapter XXXIV of Volume 5 (pages 208–211, with Plate LXXVII) contains the most detailed ethnobotanical account of cannabis in the eastern Indonesian archipelago from the colonial period, documenting three distinct varieties, multiple preparation methods, medicinal applications observed firsthand and the Malay concept of Hayal - a state of intoxicated transcendence described as an attribute befitting kings.

Composition and publication

Rumphius arrived in Ambon in 1653 as a soldier of the VOC and spent the remainder of his life there, eventually becoming the Company's official naturalist. He began systematic botanical work in the 1660s, maintaining a garden from which he documented both indigenous and imported species. He went completely blind from glaucoma in 1670 but continued his work with the assistance of others, including his wife Suzanna, who was killed along with their daughter in the earthquake and tsunami of 17 February 1674.^{citation needed}

The manuscript of the Herbarium Amboinense was first completed around 1690, but the ship carrying it to the Netherlands was sunk by the French, and Rumphius was forced to reconstruct the work from a copy that Governor Johannes Camphuys had prudently retained. The reconstructed manuscript reached the Netherlands in 1696, only for the VOC to suppress it — the Company judged that it contained too much commercially sensitive information about the spice trade. Rumphius died in 1702 without seeing his life's work in print. The embargo was lifted in 1704, but no publisher came forward until Johannes Burman, Director of the Amsterdam Botanical Garden, edited and published the work in six folio volumes between 1741 and 1750, with a supplementary Auctuarium in 1755.^{citation needed}

The work was published bilingually in Latin and Dutch, with plant descriptions accompanied by copper-plate engravings. It recorded plant names in Malay, Latin, Dutch, and Ambonese, often adding Macassarese and Chinese equivalents making it an unparalleled multilingual record of indigenous botanical knowledge from this period. ^{[peacock term]} ^{[citation needed]}

Cannabis content: Chapter XXXIV

The cannabis entry occupies Chapter XXXIV of Volume 5, titled De Indische Hennip ("Indian Hemp") in the Dutch text and Cannabis Indica, seu Herba stultorum ("Indian Cannabis, or Herb of Fools") in the Latin. The chapter spans pages 208–211 with the accompanying botanical illustration at Plate LXXVII. A following Chapter XXXV (page 212) describes Ganja sativa, which is actually ramie (Boehmeria nivea) — a fiber plant also called "ganja" in Malay, demonstrating that the word was applied to multiple fiber-producing plants, with the specific cannabis plant distinguished by the name Ginji.

Three varieties documented

Rumphius describes three distinct forms of cannabis cultivated or observed in Ambon:

Ginji Lacki Lacki (male)

The male plant, called Ginji Lacki Lacki, is described as having a simple, straight stem, slightly angular, firm, and pale green, reaching six to seven feet in height with few lateral branches set obliquely upright. The bark is thinner than that of European hemp but can still be split into threads. The leaves are divided into five narrow leaflets (lacinia), serrated all around, the largest about five inches long. On larger branches, seven to nine leaflets appear together (usually seven); on lateral branches, three; at the apex, a single leaflet. Rumphius notes that the male flowers in greater abundance than the female but with smaller blossoms.

Female

The female plant grows taller — ten feet — with a darker green coloring, rougher texture, and stronger smell. It bears seven leaflets on the main stem, three on side branches, and one at the top. The seeds are described as acuminate (pointed), cone-shaped, glaucous (pale blue-green), and oily to the touch, with a surface striated like a rice grain in its husk. Rumphius provides a vivid sensory detail: when gathering the seed pods, "the fingers become dirty with a greasy sap, more than when picking fresh Tobacco leaves, filling the nose with a heavy smell."

Ginji Papoua

A third variety from eastern Indonesia:

"In Ambon there is also a third species, called Ginji Papoua, short of stem, with small narrow leaves heaped together in bundles, between which the seed with its pods stick out, brought from the Papuan and Sula Islands, but mostly so named because its foliage is so curled and wrinkled like the hair of Papuans."

This description documents a morphologically distinct cannabis variety from the easternmost extent of the Indonesian archipelago. The compact growth habit, bundled leaf arrangement, and wrinkled foliage distinguish it from both the tall male and taller female forms observed in Ambon proper. Whether the Ginji Papoua represents a genuinely separate genetic lineage or a phenotypic response to different growing conditions remains an open question with potential significance for understanding cannabis diversity in Island Southeast Asia.

Javanese seed supply

Rumphius states that cannabis in Ambon is "more common in the upper lands of India than in these eastern quarters" and is "only seen in certain gardens" where it is "propagated through Javanese seed." Critically, he observes that although the Ambon plants produce seed, the plant "will not continue beyond two generations" without restocking from Java.

This documents an active Java-to-Ambon seed trade network in the late seventeenth century, and suggests that the equatorial conditions of Ambon (approximately 3.7°S latitude) were marginal for sustained cannabis cultivation. The need for periodic Javanese restocking implies that either the plants failed to adapt to local conditions across generations, or that the small Ambonese growing population suffered from inbreeding depression. In either case, Java functioned as the upstream seed source for cannabis cultivation across the eastern archipelago.

The concept of Hayal

Rumphius provides the most detailed early European account of the Malay concept of Hayal — a specific state of cannabis intoxication that he translates as a kind of vertiginous drunkenness:

This vertiginous drunkenness the Malays call Hayal, and they say it is a quality or custom befitting their Kings, who could not bear the burden and cares of government without sometimes making themselves Hayal with this or similar medicine.

He reinforces this with a quotation attributed to the last Sultan of Cambay (Gujarat):

Whenever he wished to travel in his dreams through Portugal, Brazil, and other lands, he needed only take a little Bangue mixed with sugar and the aforesaid spices, called Majoeh.

The framing of cannabis intoxication as a royal prerogative rather than a vice stands in sharp contrast to the European characterization embedded in the Latin name Herba stultorum ("Herb of Fools"). Rumphius, to his credit, records both perspectives without entirely dismissing the Malay view, even as his own account emphasizes the dangers of immoderate use.

Preparations

Drawing on the Portuguese physician Garcia ab Orta's Colóquios dos simples e drogas da India (1563) and his own observations, Rumphius documents several preparation methods:

Juice with betel: The juice pressed from leaves and seed, mixed with Areca and Pinang (betel nut and leaf), and drunk — "which inebriates and greatly disturbs the senses."
Smoked with tobacco: Dried leaves mixed with tobacco and smoked — described as "even more effective" than the liquid preparation. This is the method Rumphius himself observed in Ambon.
Majub (= Turkish Maslach): An edible compound for producing pleasant dreams and deep sleep, composed of cannabis with "a little nutmeg, mace, cloves, the best camphor, and opium."
Aphrodisiac: Seed prepared with "Musk, Amber, and Sugar."
Leaf tea: Dried leaves steeped in hot water and drunk "like tea-water, when they want to become half-drunk or Hayal." This casual preparation method, documented from the Hitu Muslims on Ambon, represents the mildest form of use.

Medicinal uses observed in Ambon

Rumphius records specific medicinal applications that he witnessed firsthand among the Moors of Hitoe (Muslim inhabitants of the Hitu peninsula on Ambon), who obtained plant material from Rumphius's own garden:

Male root for gonorrhea: The root of the male plant was chewed as a treatment for "virulent Gonorrhea."
Female leaves for respiratory conditions: The green leaves of the female plant were boiled in water with cloves and nutmeg, and the decoction given to those suffering from "chest tightness, Asthma, with stabbing pains as if Pleurisy."

That these medicinal applications were carried out by Hitu Muslims using plants cultivated in a European naturalist's garden speaks to the cross-cultural botanical exchange occurring in seventeenth-century Ambon — and to the trust Rumphius had established with local knowledge holders over decades of residence.

Personal observations of use

Unlike many colonial-era botanical writers who relied entirely on secondhand accounts, Rumphius describes witnessing cannabis use directly:

I have seen various effects of this plant in those who mixed it with Tobacco and smoked it: some became completely furious, wanting nothing but to fight and smash everything. Others, of a more moist and melancholic humour, began to weep, with sardonic laughter, and yet also to threaten.

He concludes from observation that "the most maddening power lies in the leaves, not in the seed, which in small quantity can be eaten without harm."

Rumphius also records a military application via Julius Caesar Scaliger: the Turks used Maslach before battle "to be bold or half-mad, and to despise all dangers" — paralleling the use of opium for similar purposes elsewhere in Asia.

Taxonomic significance

The Herbarium Amboinense occupies a pivotal position in the taxonomic history of cannabis. Rumphius's use of the name Cannabis indica in this work — composed around 1690 and published in 1741 — predates the formal description by Lamarck in 1785 that is conventionally cited as the origin of the indica designation.

The chain of influence runs as follows:

Rumphius (composed c. 1690, published 1741): Names the Ambon plant Cannabis indica in Chapter XXXIV of Volume 5, distinguishing it from European hemp. Also identifies a third variety, Ginji Papoua, from the Papuan and Sula Islands.
Linnaeus (1753): In Species Plantarum, references Rumphius when discussing the genus Cannabina, though Linnaeus recognizes only a single species, Cannabis sativa.
Linnaeus (1754): In his dissertation Herbarium Amboinense, written with student Olof Stickman, Linnaeus systematically reviews Rumphius's work in a twin-column format, reducing Rumphius's Cannabis indica to Cannabis sativa. Only about 100 of the nearly 700 taxa illustrated by Rumphius were referenced across all of Linnaeus's publications.
Lamarck (1785): In Encyclopédie méthodique, formally describes Cannabis indica as a species distinct from Cannabis sativa, based on specimens from India. Whether Lamarck was directly influenced by Rumphius's earlier use of the name is uncertain, but the conceptual framework — that cannabis from the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia represented something taxonomically distinct from European fiber hemp — was established by Rumphius nearly a century earlier.
Hasskarl (1866): Made Rumphius's Cannabis indica tertia (the Ginji Papoua) the type of a new variety, Cannabis sativa var. crispata, recognizing the morphological distinctiveness that Rumphius had documented.
Merrill (1917): In An Interpretation of Rumphius's Herbarium Amboinense, confirmed the botanical identifications and traced the nomenclatural chain from Rumphius through Linnaeus, providing the modern scholarly apparatus for the work.

The Herbarium Amboinense thus represents not only the first published use of Cannabis indica as a name, but also the earliest documented recognition that cannabis varieties from Southeast Asia's tropical latitudes exhibited morphological and pharmacological characteristics distinct from temperate-latitude fiber hemp — a distinction that remains central to cannabis taxonomy and landrace classification today.

Plate LXXVII

Plate LXXVII accompanies the text of Chapter XXXIV and depicts two cannabis forms:

Figure 1 (left): The male Cannabis indica, labeled Ginji Lacki Lacki. The illustration shows a narrow-leaflet plant with the palmate leaf arrangement and serrated margins described in the text.
Figure 2 (right): Described in the plate legend as the female and "a smaller species, also called Ginji Papoua." This figure shows a more compact plant with narrower, more congested foliage.

The narrow-leaflet morphology depicted in both figures is consistent with what modern classification describes as narrow-leaf drug type (NLD) — the phenotype characteristic of equatorial and tropical-latitude cannabis landraces from Southeast Asia. This visual record from the 1690s provides an important baseline for understanding the historical morphology of Indonesian cannabis before centuries of eradication, hybridization, and genetic erosion.

Significance for landrace conservation

The Herbarium Amboinense documents a moment in time — the late seventeenth century — when cannabis was cultivated in Ambon gardens, traded from Java, known in distinct varieties from Papua, used medicinally by Hitu Muslims, smoked recreationally with tobacco, and conceptualized within a Malay framework (Hayal) that framed intoxication as a legitimate practice with royal precedent.

Every element of this documented culture has since been disrupted or destroyed. The Dutch colonial Verdovende Middelen Ordonnantie of 1927, Indonesia's post-independence narcotics laws (1976, 2009), and continuous BNN eradication campaigns have driven cannabis cultivation underground or eliminated it entirely across most of the archipelago. The Ginji Papoua — a potentially unique genetic lineage from eastern Indonesia — may no longer exist. The Javanese seed trade that supplied Ambon is gone. The medicinal knowledge of Hitu's Muslim community is undocumented beyond Rumphius's account.

What remains is this text: a blind naturalist's meticulous record of a plant, its varieties, its uses, and the people who cultivated it, composed over three centuries ago on a small island in the Spice Islands — and still the most detailed primary source on historical cannabis culture in eastern Indonesia.

References

Beekman, E.M. (2011). The Ambonese Herbal, vols. 1–6. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Jarvis, C.E. (2019). "Georg Rumphius' Herbarium Amboinense (1741–1750) as a source of information for Carl Linnaeus." Gardens' Bulletin Singapore 71 (Suppl. 2): 87–107.
Merrill, E.D. (1917). An Interpretation of Rumphius's Herbarium Amboinense. Manila: Bureau of Printing. BHL.
Rumphius, G.E. (1747). Herbarium Amboinense, vol. 5, pp. 208–211, Tab. LXXVII. Amsterdam: Changuion, Uytwerf & Catuffe. BHL.
Wit, H.C.D. de (ed.) (1959). Rumphius Memorial Volume. Baarn: Hollandia.

External links

Herbarium Amboinense, Volume 5 — Biodiversity Heritage Library (full digital facsimile)
Merrill, An Interpretation of Rumphius's Herbarium Amboinense — Biodiversity Heritage Library
Original manuscript (MS BPL 314) — Leiden University Digital Collections