EASTERN BRAZIL THROUGH AN AGROSTOLOGIST’S 
SPECTACLES 
By Acnes CuHaAse, United States Department of Agriculture 
[With 9 plates] 
The flora of eastern Brazil is of especial interest to the student 
of tropical North American plants. Except for a limited amount 
of botanical exploration in Jamaica and in Santo Domingo before 
the revolution at the close of the eighteenth century, but few botan- 
ical collections were made in the Tropics of North America until 
after an important scientific expedition to Brazil had made known 
much of the flora and fauna of eastern Brazil and part of the 
valley of the Amazon. Brazil, the West Indies, and Panama have 
many species of plants in common. In working on a family of 
plants of the North American Tropics, therefore (in my case, 
grasses) it is necessary to have a fairly detailed knowledge of the 
family as found in Brazil. 
The Brazilian expedition referred to in the preceding paragraph 
was sent by Francis I of Austria as an honorary escort to his 
daughter Leopoldina on her voyage to Brazil to marry the crown 
prince of Portugal and Brazil, the man later known as the “ Liber- 
ator,” Pedro I of Brazil. This Francis was a grandson of 
Maria Theresa and he was the grandfather of Maximilian, the short- 
lived “emperor” of Mexico and of the late Francis Joseph of 
Austria. Francis I was a patron of science and an opportunist in 
politics. In 1810 he gave his daughter Marie Louise to Napoleon, 
then at the height of his power; and in 1817, Napoleon being out 
of power, he gave his younger daughter Leopoldina to the royal 
family that had fled before Napoleon from Portugal to Brazil. 
Poor Leopoldina seems to have been as reluctant a bride as was 
Marie Louise. She delayed her departure so long that some of the 
eager scientists of the honorary escort set sail without her. Mar- 
tius, the Bavarian leader of the scientific expedition, together with 
Spix, Mikan, and others set out for Brazil and arrived at Rio de 
Janeiro in July, 1817, while Leopoldina did not arrive until Novem- 
ber. She lived but eight years longer. Dom Pedro, the last em- 
peror of Brazil, was her son. 
Pohl, Natterer, and Schott of Vienna, Raddi of Tuscany, and other 
botanists and zoologists accompanied the bride or followed, so that 
383. 
