Talk:Anon. s.n., Samulcottah (1822)
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Evidentiary scope
The label gives a place, a month and a name: Samulcottah and October 1822 on the left, Cannabis sativa on the right. It carries no collector, number, altitude, habitat, use or local name, so nothing shows whether the plant was cultivated, grew wild or had escaped. The accession is classified Unknown. It documents Cannabis at Samulcottah in October 1822, in the coastal plain of the Northern Circars. No conservation priority is assigned.
Georeferencing
Samulcottah is Samalkot, the Company station near the port of Kakinada in the Northern Circars (RBGE Botanics Stories). Samalkota is now a mandal of Kakinada district, Andhra Pradesh, which was formed from part of East Godavari district in April 2022 (Kakinada District, mandals). The label names no site within the town and gives no altitude, so no elevation is asserted and the coordinate is Samarlakota's own point in OpenStreetMap (node 1193902426), 17.05, 82.17, used as a locality georeference rather than as a reconstructed collection point.
The coordinate georeferences the place the label names, at two decimal places, with the mapped object named above. Samarlakota's municipal area is 14.08 km² (English Wikipedia, Samarlakota), a circle about 2.1 km in radius, and 1 km is added for the rounding of the point. An earlier version of this note put the uncertainty at about 3 km. Basis: settlement point. Uncertainty: about 4 km. Éloise 06:11, 18 September 2026 (+07)
Editorial treatment
Nothing on the sheet names a collector. The catalogue names none either, so the title uses Anon. in the collector position of the s.n. form. Two other forms were considered. A title with no collector at all would break the pattern the wiki's titles follow. The institution form used for Saharanpur Botanical Garden 31 (1889) needs an institution, which this label does not give. The collector and collector number fields are left empty instead of carrying Anon.
The title keeps the label's Samulcottah; the fields use the present-day Samalkot.
The label is written as two columns joined by a brace, so Samulcottah and October 1822 stand against Cannabis sativa. The hand is a single one and the ink is uniform, so the place and the date belong to the same writing.
Samalkot was where William Roxburgh was posted in 1781 and where he made his experimental garden. Edinburgh holds Roxburgh material through other routes. Nothing on this sheet connects it to that garden. No such provenance is asserted.
Edinburgh's neighbouring early sheet, Wight s.n. (1821), is dated October 1821, a year before this one. Whether the two are in the same hand has not been examined.
Source citations remain in the article. Éloise 04:42, 18 September 2026 (+07)