Vicente Cervantes

Vicente or Vincente de Cervantes (1755 in Ledrada – 1829 in Mexico) was a Spanish and Mexican medical doctor and botanist.

Background

Don Vicente Cervantes was a contemporary of Martín Sessé y Lacasta and corresponded with Jean-Louis Berlandier, the French naturalist who botanized in Mexico and Texas as part of the Mexican Boundary Commission. He was also the first Professor of Botany in New Spain, at the Royal Botanic Garden in Mexico City.

It is after him that the magnificent Odontoglossum orchid from central and western Mexico, the "Cervantes Odontoglot" (Odontoglossum cervantesii), is named. This name was given in 1824 by Mexican botanists Pablo de La Llave and Juan José Martínez de Lexarza. Today this species´ accepted name is Rhynchostele cervantesii (La Llave & Lex.) Soto Arenas & Salazar, established in 1993 after several nomenclatural changes.

Juan Diego del Castillo (d. 1793) joined Cervantes in Mexico. Del Castillo left a large sum of money towards the printing of their projected book Flora Mexicana. Cervantes named the genus Castilla, consisting of three large latex yielding trees, after him.

The standard author abbreviation Cerv. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.

Notes

  1. ↑ M.J.R. Loadman, Tears of the Tree: The Story of Rubber –a Modern Marvel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 25.
  2. ↑ International Plant Names Index. Cerv.

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