{"id":136441,"date":"2013-10-11T13:09:07","date_gmt":"2013-10-11T16:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=136441"},"modified":"2013-10-11T13:34:51","modified_gmt":"2013-10-11T16:34:51","slug":"magnificent-botanist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/magnificent-botanist\/","title":{"rendered":"Magnificent botanist"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jo\u00e3o

COLLECTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT MUSEUM \/ JBRJ<\/span>Jo\u00e3o Barbosa Rodrigues in his office at the Botanical Garden (undated): recognized in his lifetimeCOLLECTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT MUSEUM \/ JBRJ<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

In 1903 Jo\u00e3o Barbosa Rodrigues published Sertum palmarum brasiliensium<\/em>, a classic work on the botany of Brazil, under the best possible conditions. It was printed in two volumes in Brussels, Belgium, using the most up-to-date graphic techniques. Financed by the Brazilian government, the book brings together 174 watercolors and the author’s texts in Latin and French with the description of 389 species of palm (42 genera)\u2014166 of them new to science. Rodrigues was 61 years old and director of the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden and personally supervised the printing. The book\u2019s publication was the crowning achievement of a career marked by controversy and lack of recognition by other botanists.<\/p>\n

Jo\u00e3o Barbosa Rodrigues (1842-1909) was born in Rio de Janeiro, and spent his childhood in the state of Minas Gerais. He returned to Rio to continue his studies, and he met Guilherme Sch\u00fcch, the Baron of Capanema, who was also an amateur botanist and would become a mentor, admirer and patron of Rodrigues. In 1870, Rodrigues surprised Rio\u2019s small scientific community by seeking money from the imperial government to publish a book with drawings and descriptions of orchids. It was astonishing because up until that time he had been teaching drawing at the Colegio Pedro II, without ever participating in the city\u2019s small circle of scientists. The request led to a discussion in the press about his actual competence in the area. Ladislau Netto, a National Museum botanist, was one who openly criticized Rodrigues.<\/p>\n

\"Examples

SERTUM PALMARUM BRASILIENSIUM \/ SENATE LIBRARY <\/span>Examples of palm trees drawn by Jo\u00e3o Barbosa Rodrigues in 1873 while in the Amazon: Oenocarpus distichus Mart<\/em>SERTUM PALMARUM BRASILIENSIUM \/ SENATE LIBRARY <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

In the end, the book about orchids was not published that year. But Rodrigues was ultimately chosen to explore the Amazon River valley in 1872, thanks to Capanema\u2019s sponsorship. The aim was to describe the species of the genus Palmarum<\/em> and correct some studies that Carl Friedrich von Martius had done on the plant in the early 19th century. \u201cFor the first time, the Brazilian government financed the trip of a Brazilian naturalist for the sole purpose of doing a taxonomic survey of a specific botanical group,\u201d says Magali Romero S\u00e1, a science historian at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation\u2019s Casa de Oswaldo Cruz, and the author of studies on Rodrigues.<\/p>\n

Rodrigues spent three and a half years in the region. He drew and described orchids and palm trees, made ethnographic notes on the population and wrote about the use of local flora in medicine, food and housing. He also collected geological and archaeological material and studied the preparation of curare, a poison used by the indigenous people.<\/p>\n

He returned to Rio de Janeiro, unemployed, but was hired by Capanema to manage an insecticide factory in Rodeio, in inland Rio de Janeiro State. He still continued his research on orchids. Some of his illustrations were copied and included in a monograph by von Martius entitled Orquid\u00e1ceas da monumental flora brasiliensis, with Rodrigues\u2019s permission. It was not until 1996 that his Iconograhie des orchid\u00e9es du Br\u00e9sil was published in Switzerland in Portuguese, English, French and German.<\/p>\n

\"Jo\u00e3o

SERTUM PALMARUM BRASILIENSIUM \/ SENATE LIBRARY <\/span>Jo\u00e3o Barbosa Rodrigues always put the image in context by using a native plant as reference: Oenocarpus bataua<\/em> in detail, which bears edible fruit and provides high quality oilSERTUM PALMARUM BRASILIENSIUM \/ SENATE LIBRARY <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

In 1882 the Botanical Museum of the Amazon was created, and he was appointed its director, again at the request of Capanema. When the museum closed in 1890, he became director of Rio\u2019s Botanical Garden, where he remained until his death. Rodrigues completely restructured the institution: he boosted scientific research, built a herbarium and library, and reorganized the greenhouses and nurseries. He also created the position of traveling naturalist and increased exchanges with other scientific institutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite all his talents, some criticism of him by other scientists was justified,\u201d says S\u00e1. Before announcing the discovery of a particular species, it had to be compared to available collections, but Brazil had no collections for comparative purposes at the time and many of the species Rodrigues described had been identified earlier. To S\u00e1, this omission does not diminish his scientific work as a botanist, illustrator and manager. \u201cHe was shrewd and knew how to copy the best from institutions abroad for the Botanical Garden,\u201d S\u00e1 concludes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Magnificent botanist","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152],"tags":[213,241,245],"coauthors":[104],"class_list":["post-136441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-retrospect","tag-botany","tag-history","tag-literature"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136441"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=136441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}