The book itself was a pioneered work; it was the first manual on the useful plants in Indonesia. The book was further improved with research and corrections and re-edited multiple times by the author upon receiving more plant samples and collaborating with his colleagues.[1] He even proposed an edition with illustrations and images of the plants for further detail. His suggestions were however not carried out due to the hesitant nature of the publishers with regards to the financial implications. He however does allude to another book in his preface; a book written by Doctors van Leeuwen and his wife about the zoocecidia and galls of plants in Indonesia, which was released at a similar time and does contain images and illustrations that Heynes had originally planned for.[1] Further development of the book was completed by 1927, when C. van Overeem revised and reprinted the book now including a review of the economic importance of fungi.[1] Heyne's did not further elaborate on the subject and stopped the methodological collection of plant names as he had previously done as a result of the publication of F.S.A. de Clercq’s botanica dictionary for the Netherlands East Indies, he believed it would result in the same work being conducted twice.[1]



The book, considering it’s original nature, was a book of great importance at the time. In 1927 it was to be translated into both English and Bahasa Indonesian. The ministry in the Hague however did not provide the necessary assistance he needed as they did not see the use of investing in the project.[1] In 1969 the idea was proposed again and the project was well received. Two provisional teams were set up for an English and Indonesian copy, a detailed budget and programme were drafted and submitted. The project was to be done in cooperation with the National Herbarium at Leyden, the Laboratory for Plant Taxonomy of the University in Wageningen, the Herbarium Bogoriense and Kebun Raya Indonesia.[1] However due to unexplained reasons, despite the endorsement of International Agricultural Centre and University of Wageningen, the Dutch ministry prevented the follow through on the project. In 1984 three copies of a typewritten English translation were obtained of the four installments. The copies were at the Forestry Department in Kuala Lumpur, the Botanic Gardens in Singapore and at the Forest Research Institute in Kepong.[1]



The author released more publications with regards to the plant landscape in the Netherlands East Indies. In 1929 he released ‘Jaarboek van het Departement van Landbouw, Nijverheid en Handel in Nederlandsch-Indië’ which translates into the yearbook of the department of agriculture, industry, and trade in the Netherlands East Indies.[1] The publications discusses the botanical, soil and microbe laboratories, plant disease, the botanical gardens he was working with, as well as general agriculture and more industrial related concepts such as the trade, businesses and policies.[2] Further works he released include ‘Nota over het klapper-vraagstuk’ which translates to ‘note on the achieve’.[1] In his publication he lists a large range of plants by name and includes observations and details with regards to their time of flowering, fruit ripening and other details ranging with the species.[3] It is a work of horticulture with an incentive coming from the economic incentives of the study of such plants.


The book also sparked the formation of an organization: the PROSEA programme. PROSEA is short for ‘Plant Resources of South-East Asia’. The scientific enterprise was founded in 1985 and produced a manual on tropical economic botany. It was to become a multi-volume hand-book on approximately 5000 useful plants in South-East Asia.[1] In 1994 the hand-book was published in 8 volumes with 1790 species written by 320 authors.[1] The handbook grew even further to 19 volumes in 2000.[4]

Heyne's work is still of great importance to the agriculture, horticulture, and forestry of Indonesia however development in landscapes some of his work has become obsolete; plants have disappeared, new plants have been introduced and plants have been given more or less importance and thus research and significance.[5] Moreover due to the archaic nature of the writing, it can be understood by a rapidly decreasing number of people. However due to the importance of his work and applicability of it, his work is still being expanded and actualized.

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Newsletter - Special Issue No. 1, February 1994". web.archive.org. 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2022-01-11.
  2. ^ "Jaarboek van het Departement van Landbouw in Nederlandsch-Indië - part 24 | Digital Collections". digitalcollections.universiteitleiden.nl. Retrieved 2022-01-11.
  3. ^ Teysmannia. LuEsther T. Mertz Library New York Botanical Garden. Batavia, G. Kolff. 1890.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  4. ^ "THE PLANT RESOURCES OF SOUTH-EAST ASIA (PROSEA)". www.actahort.org. Retrieved 2022-01-11.
  5. ^ "Nieuwe encyclopedie over 'nuttige' Indische planten maakt kennis toegankelijk". NRC (in Dutch). Retrieved 2022-01-11.