BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS VoL. 28, No. 3 
SEPTEMBER 1980 
WALLACE, SPRUCE AND PALM TREES OF THE 
AMAZON: AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE. 
MICHAEL J. BALICK 
Alfred Russel Wallace’s Palm Trees of the Amazon and Their 
Uses ensures the author an important place among students of 
the Amazonian palm flora and in economic botany. This book, 
consisting of line drawings of palm trees, botanical descriptions 
and ethnobotanical observations, was published in 1853. For the 
most part, it received good reviews, such as the anonymous one 
in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History: “...a valuable 
companion to the great work on palms by Martius [ Historia 
Naturalis Palmarum]’ (McKinney, 1971). Wallace’s book re- 
mains a useful reference for students of the Amazonian palm 
flora and has recently been made more widely available by 
Coronado Press through a facsimile edition. 
Wallace spent four years in the forests of South America. It 
was in this period that he compiled his account of the Palmae. 
During his return voyage to England, his ship, the brig Helen, 
caught fire and sank on August 6, 1852. Wallace saved the 
manuscript and drawings for what would become Palm Trees of 
the Amazon and Their Uses along with his drawings of fishes by 
putting them in a small tin. As a consequence of this fire, his 
specimens of palms were lost (George, 1964). 
During his travels in South America, Wallace met Richard 
Spruce, the noted British botanist who spent 15 years 
(1849- 1864) studying and collecting the flora of the Amazon 
Valley and the northern Andes. Spruce’s interests in the palms 
were similar to those of Wallace: in describing species, in under- 
standing and recording geographic distributions and in compil- 
ing the local Indian uses. Spruce’s explorations and studies are 
discussed in papers by Angel (1978) and by Schultes (1953, 1968, 
1978a and 1978b) and in Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and 
Andes (Spruce, 1908), a work edited by Wallace and excerpted 
from Spruce’s own letters and journals. 
263 
