Britannicarum (1724) contains several records by Rand, whose assistance is acknowledged in the preface, and he is specially mentioned by the illustrator Elizabeth Blackwell as having assisted her with specimens for her Curious Herbal (1737–39), which was executed at Chelsea. He is one of those who prefix to the work a certificate of accuracy, and a copy in the British Museum Library has manuscript notes by him. Rand prompted botanical artists like Blackwell, and Georg Dionysius Ehret, to make illustrations of the living herbaceous plants produced by the gardens. Rand was friends with Mark Catesby, receiving seeds he collected in the Americas and a subscriber to his seminal Natural History of the region. Rand produced two catalogues of the Garden and coöperated with the Leiden Physic Garden via Herman Boerhaave. In 1730, perhaps somewhat piqued by Philip Miller's issue of his Catalogus in that year, Rand printed an Index plantarum officinalium in horto Chelseiano. In a letter to Samuel Brewer, dated 'Haymarket, 11 July 1730' (Nichols, Illustrations, i. p. 338), he says that the Apothecaries' Company ordered this to be printed. In 1739 Rand published 'Horti medici Chelseiani Index Compendiarius,' an alphabetical Latin list occupying 214 pages. His widow presented his botanical books and an extensive collection of dried specimens to the company, and bequeathed 50s a year to the præfectus horti for annually replacing twenty decayed specimens in the latter by new ones. This herbarium was preserved at Chelsea, with those of Ray and Dale, until 1863, when all three were presented to the British Museum (Journal of Botany, 1863, p. 32). Rand was a fellow of the Royal Society in 1739. Linnæus retained the name Randia, applied by William Houston in Rand's honour to a genus of tropical Rubiaceæ. He is also honoured in the naming of the genus Singaporandia (family Rubiaceae), which was found in Singapore, but also refers to Randia . References Attribution 1674 births 1743 deaths English apothecaries English botanists Fellows of the Royal Society