STANDLEY TREES AND SHRUBS OF MEXICO. 17 



was 1,100, and from them 274 new species were published in the 

 Prodromus. Tracings of the sketches were distributed to many of 

 tlie herbaria of Europe. 



Mocino returned to Spain, where he received a warm welcome 

 from the Minister of Marine, D, Juan Sabat, who gave him lodging 

 in his home and assisted him in other ways. Mocino later started 

 upon a voyage, but had proceeded only as far as Barcelona when 

 he was overcome by illness, and he died in that city in 1819. Thus 

 he failed to realize any of his hopes for the publication of the results 

 of his long years of exploration and study, nor were the fruits of 

 his labors destined to reach the public until still many more years 

 had passed. 



His drawings passed into the possession of the physician who 

 attended him in his final illness, and it is not known what finally be- 

 came of them. His manuscripts and other papers, including a 

 ^' Flora de Guatemala," are in the Botanical Garden of Madrid, where 

 the herbarium of the expedition is said to have been deposited in 1820. 

 Some of the specimens reached the Lambert Herbarium, and it is 

 believed that Mexican specimens at Kew and at the British Museum, 

 labeled as having been collected by Pavon, are from the Sesse and 

 Mociiio collections. Presumably they were distributed by Pavon, 

 and his name was affixed to the labels through some error. Pavon 

 is not known to have visited Mexico. 



The Sociedad Mexicana de Historia Natural learned that the 

 manuscript of the Flora Mexicana existed at Madrid, and as early 

 as 1870 made an attempt to secure a copy of it, but it was 15 years 

 before the attempt was successful. It was desired also to secure the 

 illustrations for publication, but this was found impracticable. The 

 Flora Mexicana was finally published in the City of Mexico in 1888 

 by the Sociedad Mexicana de Historia Natural, and a second edition, 

 with numerous corrections, was printed by the Instituto Medico 

 Nac-ional in 1894. The Plantae Novae Hispaniae was printed by the 

 former society in 1886, and was reprinted by the Secretaria de 

 Fomento for the Chicago Exposition of 1893. 



It was thus more than a hundred years after the organization of 

 the expedition that the results of its investigations were finally made 

 public. Perhaps no other botanical project has ever had so inter- 

 esting a history, and none, it may safely be said, has ever been at- 

 tended with so many dramatic incidents. If they had been pub- 

 lished when first written, the two floras would have become historic. 

 They were better prepared than most of the botanical works of their 

 day, although their authors had a very broad conception of specific 

 limits and referred many of the Mexican plants to species of the Old 

 World tropics with which they were not even congeneric. A^Hien the 

 works were actually printed they had long been obsolete, and most 



