Flora Brasiliensis Pdf

[Michael]

Scott A. Mori is the Nathaniel Lord Britton Curator of Botany at the The New York Botanical Garden. His research interests are the ecology, classification, and conservation of tropical rain forest trees. His most recent book is Tropical Plant Collecting: From the Field to the Internet.

In 1817, the German botanist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius traveled to Brazil with zoologist Johann Baptist von Spix as part of the wedding party of the Archduchess Leopoldina of Austria. The Archduchess had married the Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro I, and the naturalists attached to her party were part of her dowry arrangement. Martius and Spix started their natural history explorations in the vicinity of Rio de Janeiro and traveled some 10,000 kilometers in Brazil.

After an arduous overland trip, they arrived in Belm in 1819 and spent 11 months exploring the Amazon, reaching as far at the Ro Caquet in Colombia. Although the Amazon had been opened to international commerce in 1808, regular steam ship transportation on the river was not established until 1867, and Martius and Spix had to depend on paddlers, the wind, and the tide on the lower reaches of the river for movement from one collecting locality to another. This trip would be the basis of the most productive early natural history exploration of the Brazilian Amazon.

Upon his return to Germany in 1820, Martius was carrying with him 20,000 botanical specimens which served, and continue to serve, as the basis for countless botanical studies, including Flora Brasiliensis which remains the only published complete flora of Brazil to this day. This monumental work was started in 1840. The first volume was published in 1845, and the last completed in 1906.

Seventy-five botanists from around the world dedicated part of their careers to the project which comprises 40 volumes, 20,773 pages, 3,811 pen and ink plates, and 1,071 lithographs. Nearly 23,000 species are treated, of which 5,939 are described as new to science. This expensive and time-consuming undertaking would not have been possible without the support of Ferdinand I, Emperor of Austria; Ludovic I, King of Bavaria; and Dom Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil. Martius himself edited the first volumes. After his death in 1864, August Eichler, and then Ignatius Urban carried on with the project until its completion.

This is a very interesting article about Flora Brasiliana which was produced in the 19th century. My question is why, since so much more has been discovered in Brazil since this Flora was written, that this is the only complete Flora of Brazil. It seems strange that someone has not updated it.
I look forward to your answer.

Opus cura Musei C. R. Pal. Vindobonensis auctore Steph. Endlicher successore Ed. Fenzl conditum sub auspiciis Ferdinandi I., Austriae imperatoris, Ludovici I., Bavariae regis, Petri II., Brasiliae imperatoris, sublevatum populi brasiliensis liberalitate.

BHL acknowledges the existence of harmful content in many biodiversity science publications and original materials included in its collection. Please read BHL's Acknowledgment of Harmful Content for more information.

BHL operates as a worldwide consortium of natural history, botanical, research, and national libraries working together to digitize the natural history literature held in their collections and make it freely available for open access as part of a global "biodiversity community."

Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794-1868) was one of the most famous naturalists of the nineteenth century. From 1817 to 1821 he explored Brazil, with the zoologist Spix. During that period he collected more than 10,000 herbarium specimens that are now housed in the Botanische Staatssammlung, Muenchen, Germany. Importantly, von Martius' trip was the first to inspire academic interest in Brazil's rich flora.

Martius quickly became an expert on palms and published three volumes of the Historia Naturalis Palmarum between 1823 and 1850. Additionally, he co-founded, with Endlicher, the magnificent Flora Brasiliensis, a monographical flora series. During his life time 46 fascicles were published, the remaining were completed later by Eichler and Urban in 1906 making a total of 130 volumes.

Von Martius' private botanical collection grew, by purchase and exchange, to become one of the most important private herbaria of the nineteenth century. When he died, it contained ca. 300,000 specimens representing 65,000 species from all over the world. Approximately half of them came from the Amazon Basin. The Herbarium Martii was acquired by the Belgian government in 1870 and formed the beginning of a world collection for the then newly established Jardin botanique de l'Etat. The entire archive, with detailed lists for many of von Martius' acquisitions, is now conserved in the National Botanic Garden of Belgium.

In this age of advancing technology it is possible to make species information and herbarium material more available to the academic community by placing it on the Internet. The project 'Prototype Image Server to Integrate the Martius' Herbarium and the Digital Flora Brasiliensis' aims to do just this. It represents an inter-institutional feasibility study within Work Package 13 of the European Network for Biodiversity Information. Initially this project focuses on eight pilot groups. From these groups, all historical type specimens of Brazilian taxa have been imaged and databased along with the texts and plates of the Flora Brasiliensis. Specimens, images, plates and texts are cross-linked and currently accessible on the Internet.

From the point of view of biodiversity, Brazil is probably the richest country on earth and almost certainly possesses the richest angiosperm flora (Groombridge 1992, Shepherd 2000). It is believed to acount for up to 20% of all vascular plant species on earth. Despite this, there has been no update of the Brazilian flora. In fact the only completed flora is von Martius' Flora Brasiliensis from the nineteenth century the last volume of which was published in 1906. In total this Flora describes around 23,000 species.

The number of described species found in the area has now escalated to at least 35,000 (Govaerts 2001). Many new species are described each year, especially in areas that have been previously under collected such as the Amazonian Basin and Atlantic Rain Forest. The common accession of new species has lead to estimates for total species to range somewhere between 40,000 to more than 100,000. One thing is for sure, many species are yet to be described while the delimitation for many previously described taxa published in Flora Brasiliensis have changed. It is therefore a matter of urgency that, a detailed knowledge of the flora and its distribution is necessary if we want to preserve our most diverse and essential ecosystem.

Much of the Brazilian flora is at present poorly known taxonomically; it therefore requires careful taxonomic revision and/or detailed monographic treatment. This work is essential since many species are yet to be described or are only known from a very limited number of collections. Moreover, in many cases species are known only from a single collection and have never been recollected.

Despite considerable improvements achieved in sampling density and coverage (Prance 2001) within the Amazon Basin, much work remains, considerable areas (mainly in Amazonia, but also in other parts of the country) are still seriously under collected or have never received the attention of collectors. Many of these locations are very remote and difficult to reach, even in relatively well-known regions such as south-eastern Brazil.

The specimens collected by von Martius during his trip to Brazil (plus 800 specimens acquired later) are deposited in the 'Botanische Staatssammlung Muenchen' in Germany, unfortunetly, almost no duplicates of this material are deposited in Brazilian institutes.

The Herbarium Martii was acquired by the Belgian government in 1870 (Bommer 1871, Spring 1871 - not cited in references) and formed the beginning of a worldwide herbarium collection for the then newly established Jardin botanique de l'Etat. The archives of the Herbarium Martii, with an "Elenchus collectionum botanicarum in herbario Martii asservatarum" ("Catalogue of Botanical Collections held in the Herbarium Martii"), and detailed lists for many of von Martius' acquisitions, are also conserved in The National Botanic Garden of Belgium. For a more detailed historical account, see Frther (1994).

Von Martius became an expert on palms and published the Historia Naturalis Palmarum, (3 volumes, 1823-1850) and, initially together with Endlicher, founded and edited the magnificent and monumental Flora Brasiliensis (1840-1906), of which 46 of the 130 fascicles were published before his death. After his death the botanists Eichler and Urban completed the series. The Flora Brasiliensis is the largest flora project ever. It is the most complete flora of any Latin American country and although it is not up to date, it is still the major reference work for taxonomists working on this vegetation. Originally the Flora Brasiliensis was composed on the basis of the collections made by von Martius during his travels in Brazil (1817-1821) and by specimens acquired from other collectors. It contains nearly 23,000 species of vascular plants from "Brazil" of which many were new to science. In fact some of the species treated in the Flora are from bordering countries such as Venezuela or Peru but it was assumed at the time that such species might also occur in Brazil hence their inclusion.

The Flora Brasiliensis is based on historical herbarium specimens mainly housed in European institutes. The first volumes of the Flora were based on von Martius' own collections (currently housed at the Botanische Staatssammlung Muenchen, Germany) and specimens in his private herbarium (now in The National Botanic Garden of Belgium). Duplicates of his private collection were sent to other European and North American herbaria, however, only a small set of duplicates occurs in Brazil. Later volumes included studies from other collections, but again few duplicate specimens remained in Brazil.

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