This paper explores the coloniality of botany and its transnational genealogy by examining critical questions about agency of representation of botanical nomenclature. We use two examples—Hortus Malabaricus in the seventeenth century, and the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) from the twenty-first century—as bookends to examine the legacies of colonial botany. The Hortus is a comprehensive treatise developed by Hendrik van Rheede, the governor of Dutch Malabar, with the help of local botanists, doctors, and physicians. It remains one of the most comprehensive works on the flora of Asia and the tropics. The impetus for the Hortus was the desire for a catalogue of local plants so colonists could more efficiently extract the rich botanical resources in Asia. The TKDL is a digital repository of traditional knowledge of India. The impetus was to establish prior use of herbs and medicines in India and challenge global biopiracy of traditional Indian knowledge. Both the Hortus and the TKDL are repositories that respond to colonial regimes of power—the former for more efficient colonial extraction, and the latter to thwart it. Yet both are caught up in Western norms of botanical nomenclature. Drawing on feminist, postcolonial, and transnational studies, this paper examines the two moments to explore the enduring and shifting meanings of transnational colonial regimes of power.

本文通过研究有关植物命名法表征机构的关键问题，探讨了植物学的殖民性及其跨国谱系。我们使用两个例子——十七世纪的马拉巴里克斯植物和二十一世纪的传统知识数字图书馆（TKDL）——作为书挡来研究殖民植物学的遗产。《Hortus》是荷兰马拉巴尔总督亨德里克·范·里德 (Hendrik van Rheede) 在当地植物学家、医生和医师的帮助下编写的综合性论文。它仍然是关于亚洲和热带植物区系最全面的著作之一。Hortus的推动力是对当地植物的目录的渴望，以便殖民者能够更有效地提取亚洲丰富的植物资源。TKDL 是印度传统知识的数字存储库。其推动力是在印度建立草药和药物的优先使用权，并挑战全球对印度传统知识的生物剽窃。Hortus和 TKDL 都是对殖民政权做出反应的宝库——前者是为了更有效地进行殖民榨取，后者是为了阻止殖民榨取。然而，两者都受到西方植物命名规范的束缚。本文借鉴女权主义、后殖民和跨国研究，考察了这两个时刻，以探索跨国殖民权力政权的持久和变化的意义。