Neodiversity, Volume 4, Issue 2, Pages 16-51
DOI: 10.13102/neod.42.1, Publication Date: 2009-12-21
In 1815 Prince Maximilian of Wied made his expedition to Brazil in order to study its natural history and indigenous population. Upon returning to Germany in 1817, he took with him extensive and detailed field notes and rich ethnological, zoological and botanical collections. His analysis of the journey was published in a comprehensive two-volume travel account, Reise nach Brasilien in den Jahren 1815 bis 1817 (“Journey to Brazil in the years 1815 to 1817”). Although Maximilian is well-known for his ethnological and zoological studies in Brazil, his contribution to botany is also important and has received little attention by others. Here, I present a summing up of the results obtained from the study of Maximilian’s private herbarium of Brazilian plants, which has been contextualised within the available information on his expedition and the regions of the country visited by him.