Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and Andes, Volume 1 Being Records of Travel on the Amazon and its Tributaries, the Trombetas, Rio Negro, Uaupés, Casiquiari, Pacimoni, Huallaga and Pastasa

About this book

A reprint of a classical work in the Cambridge Library Collection.

Having previously embarked on a collecting expedition to the Pyrenees, backed by Sir William Hooker and George Bentham, the botanist Richard Spruce (1817-93) travelled in 1849 to South America, where he carried out unprecedented exploration among the diverse flora across the northern part of the continent. After his death, Spruce's writings on fifteen fruitful years of discovery were edited as a labour of love by fellow naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), whom Spruce had met in Santarem.

This two-volume work, first published in 1908, includes many of the author's exquisite illustrations. Showing the determination to reach plants in almost inaccessible areas, Spruce collected hundreds of species, many with medicinal properties, notably the quinine-yielding cinchona tree, as well as the datura and coca plants. Volume 1 contains Wallace's biographical introduction and a list of Spruce's published works. The narrative includes discussion of Para, Santarem, and the Negro and Orinoco rivers.

Contents

Preface
Biographical introduction
List of books and papers

1. Para and the equatorial forests
2. Voyage to Santarem and first residence there
3. To Obydos and the River Trombetas
4. Residence at Santarem
5. Geology and botany of Santarem
6. From Santarem to the Rio Negro
7. Residence at Manaos
8. Voyage up the Rio Negro at Sao Gabriel
9. Cataracts and mountain-forests of Sao Gabriel
10. Cataracts and unexplored forests of the Uaupes river
11. At San Carlos do Rio Negro
12. In Humboldt's country
13. To the cataracts of the Orinoco and return to San Carlos
14. San Carlos to Manaos (Barra)

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