Career

January a botanist became a professor of botany when many plants were imported from the Cape and Ceylon and a new system had to be developed. As alderman of the city, together with burgomaster Johan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen he led the arrangement of the new botanic garden, Hortus Medicus later becoming Hortus Botanicus. He cultivated exotic plants on his farm "Zuyderhout" near Haarlem.

Commelin amassed a fortune by selling herbs and drugs to apothecaries and hospitals in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities.

Commelin did a great deal of the work in publishing Hortus malabaricus of Rheede, and Nederlandse Flora published in 1683 as well as contributing commentaries to the second and third volumes. The genus Commelina is named after him.