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A SHORT HISTORY OF THE HEUDE MUSEUM
"MUSEE HEUDE" 1858-1952
ITS BOTANIST AND PLANT COLLECTORS
OCTAVIUS WILLIAM BORRELL*
Mr. Liu Zhong Ling, M. C.
Dear Friends,
Let me first introduce Mr. Borrell as many of you don't know him, I suppose. He could qualify as a Citizen of the world, an International citizen. Through his origins, he belongs to two great cultures, being British and Greek. Through his primary, secondary and tertiary education and through language studies, he has touched two more cultures, the Italian and German. In 1934, by choice, he selected China to be his adopted country where he spent 18 years of his youth. But it was not to last. Circumstances made him leave China in 1952.
After spending five years teaching and studying in Britain, he returned to the Far East. He taught Chinese, Malay and Indian students in Malaysia and Singapore, Chinese and Eurasians in Hong Kong, Chinese, Dayaks and Ibans in Sarawak, Melanesians and Polynesians in New Guinea and finally he retired in Multicultural Australia.
Mr. Borrell
Thank you Liu for your kind introduction.
Now I am back in Shanghai, old memories of olden times come back to my mind and I have the extraordinary and delightful pleasure of meeting old friends I knew 40 years ago.
It was in a casual conversation that I mentioned the Musee Heude
* Talk given on 11 October, 1991 to a group of botanists at a seminar in Shanghai