14 MARTIUS ON THE BOTANY OF BRAZIL. 



of talent, any one devoted more than ordinary attention to 

 this pursuit, he was soon turned aside from it by the pros- 

 pect of greater gain on his exertions taking a different direc- 

 tion. 



A few Botanists only now need be mentioned, who exclu- 

 sively belong to the present century. The first place among 

 them on account of his zeal, his activity, and the universality 

 of his knowledge, belongs to Bernardino Antonio Gomez, an 

 eminent physician, and the discoverer of what his country- 

 men for a long time denied, a Cinchona. He has in the Me- 

 moirs of the Lisbon Academy, (in 1812,) described many 

 interesting plants of the Brazils (with some figures) which he 

 collected during his residence at Rio de Janeiro. 



After him may be mentioned Manoel Joachim Henviqnez 

 de Paiva, (nephew of Dr Sanches, who was in correspon- 

 dence with Linnaeus,) who has the greatest merit as connected 

 with the Flora of Brazil. He described plants of Brazil in 

 his Memorias de Historia Natural, for example several offici- 

 nal Dorstenias. 



Frey Leandro do Sacramento, of the order of Carmelites, 

 a learned and industrious man, who received his early educa- 

 tion at his native city Olinda, (Pernambuco,) and then at 

 Coimbra, from the instructions of Bertero. He was after- 

 wards called to be Professor in the recently organized medi- 

 cal school at Rio, by the minister Araujo Conde de 

 Barca. As well as the weak state of his health would allow 

 him, he employed himself in collecting and describing the 

 plants there. His attention was particularly attracted by the 

 numerous Euphorhiacece about Rio, and he had in view to 

 publish a Monograph of them, but which his increasing ill- 

 ness prevented. He sent some small collections of dried 

 plants to the Museum d' Histoire Naturelle at Paris, and to 

 the Royal Academy of Sciences at Munich. A Treatise, writ- 

 ten in Latin, on some of the plants observed by him, which 

 was also sent to the Bavarian Academy, is, with some obser- 

 vations of M. von Schrank, printed in their Transactions, (for 

 the years 1818 — 20.) The Genera quoted as new, are Langs- 



