Flora Huayaquilensis
Flora Huayaquilensis is the popular name for the body of work produced by the botanist Juan José Tafalla during his time in South America.
Juan José Tafalla Navascués made one of the first expeditions to South America by a Spaniard that documented plants of South America. His unpublished works had been in the archives for 200 years.
Dr. Eduardo Estrella was working and researching in the archives of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Madrid, Spain, in 1985 when he found the documentary of the "Fourth Division," for the expedition of Ruiz and Pavon in Peru and Chile, Dr. Estrella found a large number of descriptions of plants whose origin corresponds to the places that belong to the Royal Audience of Quito.
The folios were numbered and contained the mysterious initials FH and those of others that do not correspond to the flora of the Royal Court and had the initials FP was not yet clear, but there was insufficient evidence to believe that was the track of something important and this leaves the publication of the flora and Huayaquilensis after 200 years, finally publishing the hard work and giving credit to the expedition of Juan José Tafalla Navascués. The Botanical Expedition to the Viceroyalty of Peru was very similar to the expedition of Juan José Tafalla Navascués. Dr. Eduardo Estrella Aguirre also founded the Ecuador National Museum of Medicine. [1]
Not all early explorers of Ecuador were so lucky in having there documents survive. Theodor Wolf (February 13, 1841 - June 22, 1924) was a German naturalist who studied the Galápagos Islands during the late nineteenth century. Wolf Island (Wenman Island) is named after him. Wolf had performed a geologic survey of mainland Ecuador, but unfortunately his collections were lost in storage.[2]
References Flora Huayaquilensis
- Flora Huayaquilensis Juan Tafalla. (Research, Annotations and Historical Study Edition). Madrid: Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICONA)-Royal Botanical Gardens, 1989. 2 volums. Second Edition Guayaquil: Guayaquil Botanical Garden-Banco del Progreso, 1995.
- Flora Huayaquilensis Juan José Tafalla Navascués, a Spaniard who was one of the first who traveled to South America and documenting the different plants with wonderful paintings and written descriptions. All of this work was in the archives and only published by Dr. Estrella after searching the Real Jardín Botánico in Madrid archives and finding the informaction that formed, Flora Huayaquilensis and finally the life work of Tafalla was published.
- ↑ Official web site of the Dr. Eduardo Estrella Ecuador National Museum of Medicine in Quito, Ecuador
- ↑ Edward John Larson, Evolution’s Workshop: God and Science on the Galapagos Islands (Basic Books, 2001), 107.
External links
- Flora Huayaquilensis sive descriptiones et icones plantarum Huayaquilensium secundum systema Linnaeanum digestae / Auctore Johanne Tafalla. 1989 vol. I: Icona, Real jardín botánico. Estudio introductorio Eduardo Estrella.
- Flora Huayaquilensis sive descriptiones et icones plantarum Huayaquilensium secundum systema Linnaeanum digestae / Auctore Johanne Tafalla. 1991 vol. II: Icona, Real jardín botánico.