34 



NOTICE RESPECTING THE PRESENT STATE OF BOTANY AND 

 BOTANIC GARDENS IN PORTUGAL. 



{In a Letter to Sir William Hooker, from Dr. Scouler, Professor of Natural 

 History in the Royal Dublin Institution.) 



We consider that, even after the labours of Brotero, the com- 

 plaint of Linnaeus may still be repeated respecting the botanic 

 riches of this kingdom, contrasted with our very imperfect infor- 

 mation respecting it. The history of Botanic Science in Portugal 

 is, unfortunately, a very brief one ; especially as the country has 

 produced only two botanists of European reputation. The earliest 

 Portuguese work, in any way relating to the vegetable kingdom, 

 is by Garsia de Horto, a Professor of Medicine in the University 

 of Coimbra. He resigned his Chair in 1534, visited India and 

 China, and published at Goa his work on the Species of the East, 

 a work whose merit caused it to be translated into most of the 

 European languages. Thome Oynes, an apothecary at Leyria, 

 also wrote on the same subject, about the beginning of the six- 

 teenth century ; and another and still more valuable work appeared 

 about this time from the pens of Pero Magalhaes de Gondavo, 

 the friend of the poet Camoens, on the history of the Provinces 

 of Brazil, then called Santa Cruz. This rare but most judicious 

 book, contains notices of many of the most valuable vegetable 

 productions of Brazil, and discusses the capabilities of that fine 

 region, and the vast resources it woidd yet open to Portugal, in 

 a spirit of sound and enlightened judgment far in advance of his 

 age or countrymen. 



The earliest catalogue of Portuguese plants was by Gabriel 

 Gaillez, who wrote about 1670, and dedicated it to the celebrated 

 Duke of Schornhurg, who afterwards fell in Ireland. It resem- 

 bles Threlkeld's on the plants of Ireland, compiled a few years 

 later • only it is very inferior even to that very meagre book. 

 Gaillez' work is merely a list of names, and often the same species 

 is indicated several times. To use the expression of Linnaeus " it 

 would require another CEdipus to divine the plants indicated by 

 Gaillez." A second edition of this work was edited by Vandelli 

 in 1780. 



We possess nothing else from the pen of a Portuguese Botanist 

 until the energetic administration of Pombal, which seems to have 



