10 OONTRIBUTIOKS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 



vegetable productions of the country. It is not the writer's pur- 

 pose to enumerate the men who have assembled the collections upon 

 which the scientific knowledge of the Mexican flora is based, but 

 references to most of them will be found in footnotes scattered 

 through the systematic account of the flora. The earlier collectors 

 have been discussed by Hemsley/ and the most complete information 

 upon the subject has been published by Leon.- Several of the 

 earliest enterprises for the botanical exploration of Mexico are so re- 

 markable, and must be referred to so frequently in the text, that it 

 seems essential to describe them in some detail. These are discussed 

 below. 



FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ. 



His interest in the North American colonies having been awakened, 

 perhaps by the reports made by the civil and religious authorities of 

 the region, Philip II of Spain gave orders to his physician, Francisco 

 Hernandez, to prepare an account of the natural history, antiquities, 

 and political conditions of New Spain.^ In order to give him a rank 

 suitable to the importance of the w^ork he was to undertake, Hernan- 

 dez was honored with the title of Protomedico of the Indies. He 

 sailed from Spain in 1570, accompanied by his son. Although Philip 

 II was very liberal in his appropriations for the expenses of the ex- 

 pedition, he appears to have underestimated the magnitude of the 

 task, and it seems that Hernandez was often embarrassed by his lack 

 of financial resources. Hernandez, however, compensated for this by 

 his intense application to his work. He visited almost all parts of 

 New Spain, observing all matters of natural history and collecting a 

 vast amount of information. His enthusiasm led him to risk his 

 health and life with experiments made upon his own person to 

 determine the medicinal j)roperties of plants discovered in the course 

 of his travels. Wliile upon a journey to Michoacan, he narrowly 

 escaped death as a result of an experiment with the latex of 

 "chupire." His health was finally undermined by his excessive 

 labors, the worry caused by his financial embarrassment, and the hos- 

 tility shown by some of those in authority. Five ycnrs had been the 

 period assigned for the c(5mpletion of his task, and at the end of that 

 time, in 1575, he had 16 folio volumes ready for publication. Two 

 years longer, however, he remained in Mexico, continually engaged 



'Biol. Centr. Amer. Bot. 4: 117-137. 18S7. 



'Nicoli'is Le6n, Bil)liotecii BotMiiico-IMcxicana, cataiogo bibliogrfttico y 

 crltico de autores y escritos referentes a vegetales de Mexico y sus aplica- 

 cio»es, desdc la (^onquista hasta el presente. Mt'xico, 1895. This work i-on- 

 tains a remarkably complete and very valuable bibliography of IMexioan botany. 

 It is unfortunate that so many of the publications listed are inaccessible in 

 even the largest libraries of the United States. 



'The name formerly applied to Mexico. 



