'' published in 1835 Wight returned to India in 1834 as a full surgeon in the 33rd Regiment of Native Infantry at Bellary. During this period he began working on the medicinal plants of India, maintaining native botanical artists and publishing brief notes in the
Madras Journal of Literature and Science and later became the editor for the botany section of that journal. The papers included one on the medicinal plant ‘
mudar’ (
Calotropis procera) and on the flora of
Courtallam.
Economic botany The recognition of Wight's botanical skills led in 1836 to his transfer to the Madras Revenue Department. The transfer was based on references from Hooker and Robert Brown, the Governor Sir
Frederick Adam advised by J.G. Malcolmson, and Wight was to report on agriculture and cotton. Over the next six years this work involved species such as tea, sugar cane,
senna and, increasingly, cotton. In 1836 he visited Ceylon for six weeks, and he reported on the resources of upland areas including the
Palni Hills. In 1841 he purchased a house in Ootacamund, which was to remain the base for his growing family until 1847. In 1842 he was appointed Superintendent of American Cotton Plantations, a post in Coimbatore that he held until his retirement in 1853. and long-staple cottons did not supersede indigenous diploid varieties until the early 20th century. Wight was an early member of the Madras Agri-Horticultural Society, whose garden, next to the
Cathedral in Madras, acted as the city's botanical garden. He acted as the Society's secretary at various times between 1839 and 1841, and edited a volume of its
Proceedings in 1842. In India Wight published numerous letters and short papers in the
Madras Journal of Literature and Science (1834–40), in the various publications of the Calcutta-based Agricultural and Society of India (1838–54) and the
Calcutta Journal of Natural History (1845–6).
Lithography and publications Wight's lasting achievement was the series of illustrated publications on Indian botany. Learning from
Roxburgh, who had used expensive engravings, Wight decided to use cheaper lithographic techniques. He began to employ the artist Rungiah (Rungia), who was employed from possibly as early as 1826 to around 1845, and thereafter employed Govindoo. Unlike other British workers of the time, he gave credit to his artists, printing their names on all his publications of their drawings. He named a genus of orchid,
Govindooia (now
Tropidia), after Govindoo, but could not do so for Rungiah, as a genus
Rungia already existed, described by
Nathaniel Wallich for an Indian plant named after the German chemist
Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge (1794-1867). Wights illustrated publications included the uncoloured, six-volume
Icones Plantarum Indiae Orientalis (1838–53) and two hand-coloured, two-volume works, the
Illustrations of Indian Botany (1838–50) and
Spicilegium Neilgherrense (1845–51). == Return to England and collections ==