Botany

A village-church school founded by Rev. W.T. Ringeltaube at Mylaudy in 1809 was shifted to Nagercoil in 1818 by Rev. C. Mead and elevated to Scott Christian College in 1893 by the indefatigable efforts of Rev. Dr. J. Duthie with a legacy of £ 1000 by Mr. Septimus Scott’s family.

The present department of Botany evolved from the Biology department and became independent since June 1966 and Botany major was offered at the under-graduate level. In 1983, the department rose to post-graduate level and in 1986, it became a Research Department offering regular, part-time and sequential M.Phil. programmes. Since 1999, the department is recognised as a Research Centre by the Manonmaniam Sundaranar University to which the college is affiliated.

The department has a well-maintained library established in 1965 with a remarkable collection of reference books in addition to text books. Book bank facility is also offered in the library.

As an integral part of this library, there is a research library in memory of the late Dr. T.A. Davis which started functioning since 8th September 1999 and owes its existence to the indefatigable efforts of Dr. A. Deva Sobhana Raj. It has a collection of 18 current journals, 70 back volumes and 7 popular magazines. Visitors frequent this library.

The department also possesses a well-furnished tissue-culture laboratory and a micro-algal culture laboratory.