On 31 May 1976 Drs. A.J. Kostermans and C.E. Ridsdale, both of Leiden, set out on a 10 weeks botanical expedition to the Western Ghats in S. India as a summer holiday tour, partly financed by contributions from British Government Parliamentary Grant In Aid, administered by the Royal Society, London and the Treub Maatschappij, Utrecht. This support is most gratefully acknowledged. Part of the expenses were paid by the botanists themselves. Here follows their itinerary. The aim was to collect specimens of this area of the world where one of the earlier works on botany appeared: Rheede van Drakenstein, Hortus Malabaricus, 1678-1703. The area is greatly under-collected and many of the species are known only from a single collection. The area was studied by Bourdillon who was Conservator of Forests for over 30 years, but despite many efforts on his part he was unable to refind some 10% of the plants reported to occur in the area by Beddome and other previous workers. The later botanists collected in the hill stations and in the dry deciduous forest, the tropical evergreen forest, particularly its trees, being neglected.