View of the Cinchona Plants in the Propagating House of the Government Gardens Ootacamund [Madras, India] taken on September 9th, 1861

Sepia photograph entitled ‘View of the Cinchona Plants in the Propagating House of the Government Gardens Ootacamund [Madras, India] taken on September 9th 1861.’ The photograph shows the experimental cultivation of young cinchona plants collected by C.R. Markham and Richard Spruce. These British government gardens and plantations became a major centre for producing cinchona during the second half of the 1800s.