Palm

This exquisite, large folio palm chromolithograph is from Joao Barbosa Rodrigues’s Sertum Palmarum Brasiliensium ou relation des palmiers nouveaux du Bresil decouverts, decrits et dessines d’apres nature. The prolific work on palms was published in Brussels in 1903. It is comprised of plates featuring full length palm trees as well as plates of detailed drawings of specific plant components. Rodrigues depicted more than 100 previously unknown species of palms in this, the apex of 30 years of field work, making this work historically significant.

J. Barbosa Rodrigues, Brazilian botanist and traveller, collected widely in Brazil between 1868 and 1897. He was director of the Manaos botanical museum from 1883-1889, and finally director of the botanical garden of Rio de Janeiro from 1889 until his death in 1909. His drawings have a cool, modern feel that exhibit his love and fascination with the structure and form of these magnificent trees.