Domingo Bello y Espinosa (31 July 1817,

La Laguna LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

– 21 January 1884) was a Spanish lawyer and

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

. He earned his doctorate at the University of San Fernando, later serving as secretary of the ''Colegio de Abogados'' in

Santa Cruz de Tenerife Santa Cruz de Tenerife, commonly abbreviated as Santa Cruz (), is a city, the capital of the island of Tenerife, Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and capital of the Canary Islands. Santa Cruz has a population of 206,593 (2013) within its admi ...

(1845–47). In 1850 he emigrated to

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

, where he maintained a successful law practice. Here he befriended Leopold Krug, a German consul stationed in Mayagüez, who like Bello y Espinosa, was an amateur botanist. With Krug, he collected flora native to the island, and in the meantime, took copious notes of the various plants.JSTOR Global Plants
(biography) In 1880 he returned to

and published the two volume "''Apuntes Para la Flora de Puerto Rico''" (1881, 1883), an annotated checklist of 964 species that was based on his Puerto Rican collections. In this work, however, he failed to make any mention of Krug's significant contributions to the project. Bello y Espinosa's original plant collections from Puerto Rico were eventually destroyed by insects. In 1880 Bello y Espinosa published a book of prose, title
"''Un Jardín Canario''"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bello y Espinosa, Domingo 1817 births 1884 deaths People from San Cristóbal de La Laguna 19th-century Spanish botanists