Vicente (Vincente) de Cervantes (Ledrada, Salamanca España; 1755 - México; 1829) was a notable

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

and Mexican physician and botanist.

Background

Don Vicente Cervantes was 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 ...

and corresponded with

Jean-Louis Berlandier Jean-Louis Berlandier (1803 – 1851) was a French-Mexican naturalist, physician, and anthropologist. Early life Berlandier was born in Geneva, and later trained as a botanist there. During this time he probably served an apprenticeship to a ...

, the French naturalist who botanized in Mexico and

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

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, the "Cervantes Odontoglot" ('' Odontoglossum cervantesii''), is named. Juan Diego del Castillo (d. 1793) joined Cervantes in

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 ...

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

Notes

Publications

*Vicente de Cervantes, Castilla, in Gazeta de Literatura de México 1794, Suppl.: 7. (2 July 1794)

References

*"La realidad se ha convertido en una materia" ''Enciclopedia de México'', v. 2. Mexico City: 1987.

External links

Berlandier papers at Harvard
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cervantes, Vicente 1755 births 1829 deaths People from the Province of Salamanca 18th-century Spanish botanists 19th-century Spanish botanists