Juan Diego del Castillo (1744–1793) was a Spanish pharmacist and botanist who joined

Vicente Cervantes Vicente (Vincente) de Cervantes (Ledrada, Salamanca España; 1755 - México; 1829) was a notable Spanish and Mexican physician and botanist. Background Don Vicente Cervantes was a contemporary of Martín Sessé y Lacasta and corresponded with J ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. Castillo wrote ''Plantas descritas en el viaje de Acapulco''. He died in Mexico. Castillo had been a contemporary of

Martín Sessé y Lacasta Martín Sessé y Lacasta (December 11, 1751 – October 4, 1808) was a Spanish botanist, who relocated to New Spain (now Mexico) during the 18th century to study and classify the flora of the territory. Background Sessé studied medicine in Z ...

. In New Spain, Lacasta had been joined by a group of Spanish botanists selected by

Casimiro Gómez Ortega Casimiro Gómez de Ortega (4 March 1741, in Añover de Tajo, Spain – 30 August 1818, in Madrid, Spain) was a Spanish physician, and botanist who was the First Professor of the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid. Under Charles III of Spain Gómez ...

, director of the

Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a c ...

. These included Cervantes,

José Longinos Martínez José Longinos Martínez (Calahorra, La Rioja, 15 March 1756 - Campeche, 6 November 1802) was a Spanish naturalist whose account of his travels through Baja California Sur, Baja California, and California in 1792 provided an important early accoun ...

, and Del Castillo. Del Castillo left a large sum of money towards the printing of their projected book ''Flora Mexicana''. Cervantes named the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

'' Castilla'' after him.M.J.R. Loadman, ''Tears of the Tree: The Story of Rubber –a Modern Marvel'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 25.

Notes

1744 births 1793 deaths 18th-century Spanish botanists {{Spain-botanist-stub