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First Illustrations of Ferns from Peru and Chile

1960; American Fern Society; Volume: 50; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1545240

1938-422X

Joseph Ewan,

Plant and animal studies

Linnaeus recognized twelve genera of ferns in his Species Plantarum of 1753. The largest genus was with fifty-eight species of which over sixty percent are American. Ineluded in his genus Polypodium were species now known to be species of Polystichum, Dryopteris, Cystopteris, Cyathea, and other genera. Some eight authors were cited by Linnaeus in providing the bibliographies for the New World species. He cited his own works first, as elsewhere in his Species Plantarum, followed by references to the works of Plumier, Petiver, Gronovius, Plukenet, Morison, Hans Sloane, and John Ray. Though Linnaeus lists Fewillaei peruviana as one of his sources in the introduction to his classic, he does not refer to Feuillee in the pages devoted to Cryptogamia Filices, evidently overlooking the fern descriptions contained in his work when writing the account of the several American species. This is more unusual since Feuillee illustrated two species based on Chilean observations not previously pictured. Father Luis Feuillee (1660-1732), explorer, astronomer, and botanist, was the author of the first herbal for Peru and Chile in which these fern drawings appeared. Luis Econches Feuillee was born at Mane, near Forcalquier, in Provence, in the year 1660, of humble parents. In his twentieth year Luis joined the Order of the Minimi. At this time Europe was awakening to a lively interest in the sciences-the Royal Society was founded in London when Luis was two years old, and the Academic des Sciences was chartered by Louis XIV in 1666. Feuillee 's taste for the sciences attracted attention in official circles and in 1699 he was sent to the Levant as an aide to Jacques Cassini on a hydrographic mission to determine the character of ports, to map offshore currents, and so forth. His mission to the Antilles in 1703 was an extension of this assignment; on this expedition he went ashore at Martinique, Caracas, and elsewhere, and returned to Brest in 1706. On Decem26