Looking into the flora of Dutch Brazil: botanical identifications of seventeenth century plant illustrations in the Libri Picturati

Botanical content of the Libri Picturati Brazilian collection

Our identifications of all plant illustrations are listed with their vernacular names, page numbers, and associated information on growth form, geographical origin, conservation and domestication status in Supplementary Dataset S1. From the entire collection of Brazilian plant illustrations in the Libri Picturati, we identified 198 taxa that are organized in the Theatrum, LP and MC as indicated in Supplementary Table S1. Between folios 729 and 731 of the Theatrum, an illustration of a tea plant (Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze) is glued, which was sent by Cleyer from Batavia (currently Jakarta, Indonesia), the headquarters of the Dutch East Indian Company. As it was inserted later in the Theatrum and not depicted in Brazil, we did not include it in our analysis. A few plants remained unidentified due to a lack of morphological characters, the limited quality of the drawing and/or the lack of references to written sources by Marcgrave or Piso^7,8.

Among the LP botanical watercolors, we identified 34 vascular plant species (38 images) with the Passifloraceae as the most represented family (five species, six images), followed by the Fabaceae (five species, five images). Among the MC plant drawings, we identified 26 vascular plant species (34 images) and the most represented families were the Cucurbitaceae (three species, seven images) and the Myrtaceae (three species, three images). Among the illustrated content of the Theatrum, we identified 162 vascular plant species (175 images) and one basidiomycete fungus (Copelandia cyanescens (Sacc.) Singer, Bolbitiaceae). Fungi were commonly placed within the plant kingdom until the mid-twentieth century. The most represented families among the illustrated content are the Fabaceae (22 species, 22 images), followed by the Solanaceae (10 species, 11 images), Lamiaceae (six species, six images) and Myrtaceae (six species, eight images). The Fabaceae is the most diverse plant family in the world⁴¹, while the Myrtaceae is one of the most rich-species woody plant family in the Atlantic Forest in Brazil⁴².

Mentzel’s unfinished task: the intended botanical content of the Theatrum

The Theatrum also includes 206 empty folios, interleaved between 160 folios with plant illustrations (see example in Fig. 1). On most folios, vernacular names and references to the pages of the HNB and IURNM are written on the top center, often relating to one taxon, but sometimes referring to two taxa (Fig. 1). This occurs specially at the end of the collection, as if the maker had ended up with little space and somehow had to squeeze them in. Among these unillustrated folios, the vernacular plant names and references to Marcgrave and Piso’s sources allowed us to identify 196 vascular plant species (218 records) including five ferns from the families Drypteriaceae (one species), Polypodiaceae (one species) and Pteridaceae (three species); one alga (Sargassum tenuissimum (Endlicher & Diesling) Grunow, Phaeophyceae) and a marine sponge (Clathria cf. nicoleae Vieira de Barros, Santos & Pinheiro, Microcioniadae) (Supplementary Dataset S1). Considering that the study of spongiology (Porifera) did not develop until the mid-nineteenth century, these animal colonies must have been considered an aquatic plant because of the tree-like shape and the fact of living attached to the seabed. The most represented family that would correspond to the empty folios was the Fabaceae (29 unillustrated species, 33 records), followed by the Arecaceae (nine species, ten records), Solanaceae (nine species, nine records), and Asteraceae (seven species, seven records). Estimates of the intended botanical content (i.e., empty folios with references together with the illustrated folios) are shown in Table 1.

On p. 139 of the Theatrum, the vernacular name Ambaibuna is written on an empty page without reference to Marcgrave’s or Piso’s books. The page with Ambaibuna is located between Ambaiba (p. 137), which corresponds to the illustration of Cecropia pachystachya Trécul, and a blank page with only the vernacular name Ambaitinga (p. 141), which corresponds to C. hololeuca Miq.^{7: 92,24} (Fig. 1). The Brazilian Cecropia species are known in Tupi-related languages as Ambauba, Ambauva or Umbaúba (https://dataplamt.org.br/), which are phonetically and morphologically similar to Ambaibuna. For those reasons, we initially assumed that Ambaibuna referred to a Cecropia species, but the same name Ambaibuna is later repeated together with the name Iito (p. 227) next to an illustration that represents a completely different tree species: Guarea guidonia (L.) Sleumer (Fig. 1). Furthermore, the name Ambaibuna is also written above the illustration of a grapevine, Vitis vinifera L. (p. 257), also unrelated to Cecropia (Fig. 1).

Whether Ambaibuna was a generic name to designate several non-related species or represents a mistake by the author who wrote the names on the illustrations remains unknown. On the other hand, neither Marcgrave nor Piso mentioned Ambaibuna in their descriptions of the Brazilian flora. Aside from Marcgrave and Piso’s books^7,8, it is yet to be determined which source(s) Mentzel relied on when arranging the botanical content of the Theatrum. It is nonetheless clear that he must have been confused by the similarity of some of the Tupi-related plant names. Unfortunately, Marcgrave was no longer present to help him match the illustrations, names and descriptions, because he died about 16 years before Mentzel started organizing the Brazilian plant illustrations.

Origin of the exotic species in the Libri Picturati

The Libri Picturati collection depicts in its majority native Brazilian plants. Most of the species represented in the Theatrum are native from Brazil, but the proportion of native species is much lower in the MC and lowest in the LP, in which almost half of the illustrations represent introduced species (Fig. 2).

There are 35 species of exotic origin in the complete Brazilian collection of the Libri Picturati (Supplementary Table S2). These introduced species now occur in (sub-) tropical areas around the world. Most of the exotic plants originally came from other parts of the Americas, especially Mexico, the Caribbean and the Andes region (14 species); followed by those that originated in the African continent (10 species) and tropical Asia (nine species) (Supplementary Table S2). Most of the exotic American plants that were introduced to Brazil were domesticated and traded by indigenous groups long before the European colonization, such as papaya (Carica papaya L.), cotton (Gossypium barbadense L.), sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.), beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), guava (Psidium guajava L.) and maize (Zea mays L.)³⁷. Most of the species of Asiatic origin were already naturalized or cultivated in Africa and introduced to Brazil by means of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade before the Dutch arrived, such as yams (Dioscorea alata L.), plantains (Musa × paradisiaca L.) and weeds like Abrus precatorius L. and Plumbago zeylanica L.^43,44. Others were introduced from Europe by merchants and settlers, such as the Portuguese Jesuits, who incorporated them as remedies into their boticas (Jesuit pharmacies in the colonies). For example, the various Citrus and pomegranate fruits were not only planted as fruits but also used to expel roundworms and to combat cold fevers, respectively^{45: 88}. Before their arrival to Brazil, the Portuguese and Dutch must have been familiar with some African plants, such as Aloe vera (L.) Burm.f., Ricinus communis L. and Tamarindus indica L. These useful plants were already known in Europe through Arabic and Greek medical texts, which knowledge was boosted by their translations into Latin during the High Renaissance^45,46. Punica granatum L. was introduced into the Iberian Peninsula via ancient merchant routes in the Mediterranean⁴⁷ and brough to Brazil by the Portuguese⁴⁵. Grapes (Vitis vinifera L.) were already cultivated by the Portuguese in Pernambuco around 1542⁴⁸. Along the Atlantic coast, lemons, pomegranates and grape vines adapted to the new environmental conditions and thrived in the vicinities of Johan Maurits’ residence, as evidenced by the illustrations in the Theatrum and textual accounts^6,7,40.

The presence of these globally commodified plants is common today in Brazil as in many regions worldwide. Other species seem to have lost their popularity over time. The so-called Ethiopian, Guinean or Negro pepper, Xylopia aethiopica (Dunal) A.Rich., was present around the 1640s in northeast Brazil, as evidenced in the Libri Picturati by a painting with a fruiting branch with leaves named Piperis aethiopici spés (Fig. 3a). The first iconography of this aromatic tree in Europe is found in Matthioli’s commentaries on Dioscorides under the name of Piper aethiopicum^{49: 575} and its fruits were previously cited by the Persian polymath Avicenna (980–1037)³⁰. In Europe, this African pepper was commonly used until southeast Asian spices gained popularity in the sixteenth century⁵⁰. In the plantation societies of tropical America, X. aethiopica constituted a food crop for enslaved Africans in the early colonial period^{43: 135}. Today, its fruits are used in aphrodisiac tonics⁵¹ and special dishes prepared for African deities (Orishas) in Cuba^{43: 90}, but it is unclear whether the species grows in Brazil. Its current distribution range encompasses West, Central and Southern Africa (https://gbif.org/occurrence/map?taxon_key=3157151). The dry fruits are used in tropical Africa as a condiment, in rituals and as medicine to treat cough, bronchitis, rheumatism, malaria, amenorrhea and uterine fibroids^52,53,54. There is an herbarium record in Brazil made by photographer and anthropologist Pierre Verger. The label on the specimen mentions ‘Brazil’ and ‘Plantas de Candomblé’ and it indicates that the voucher was deposited at the Herbarium Alexandre Real Costa (ALCB, according to Index Herbariorum: http://sweetgum.nybg.org/science/ih/, accessed 23 August 2021) in Bahia (Verger s/n, ALCB012478, available at ALCB, via Species Link: https://specieslink.net/search/, accessed 23 August 2021) Verger presumably collected this specimen in Bahia in 1967 while he was researching on ritual and medicinal plants used in Candomblé (http://inct.florabrasil.net/alcb-resgate/, accessed 2 June 2021)⁵⁵. However, it seems to be a mixed collection, as the leaves are oppositely arranged and with long petioles, which is uncommon to Annonaceae³⁰. In Brazil, the fruits of the Brazilian relative Xylopia aromatica (Lam.) Mart. have probably served as a good substitute for X. aethiopica, as they have a similar peppery taste and stomachic properties^{56: 3}, and are more easily gathered from the cerrado savannahs or the Amazon rainforest. Voeks⁵⁷ documented X. aethiopica seed powder as used in Candomblé rituals by Yoruba practitioners in Bahia. Nevertheless, there is no clear information whether X. aethiopica is cultivated in the Neotropics or imported; thus, the origin of the fruits, seeds or its powder in Brazil remains uncertain.

The first reference to the sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) in Brazil dates to the twentieth century, when it was introduced by European immigrants due to its economic value as an oil-producing crop⁵⁸. Sunflowers are of North American and/or Mexican origin ^59,60, and were introduced to Europe in the sixteenth century by the Spanish, as part of the Columbian exchange⁶¹. Merchants observed how native Americans benefited from this plant and exported the sunflower to Europe, where it was primarily valued as ornamental and later as a food crop, propelled by genetic improvement by the Russians in the 1800s⁵⁹. Before the sunflower became a popular and well-stablished crop in the twentieth century, this plant was already encountered in northeast Brazil, as evidenced by the illustration in the Theatrum (Fig. 3b). Portuguese sailors may have played a role in its introduction to Brazilian territories or it could have been intentionally brought by merchants or Jesuits, although the latter paid more attention to medicinal plants^45,62. We may also consider the Dutch as active agents in its introduction to their colonies in the northeast. A relevant female agent in the dissemination of the sunflower in the Netherlands was Christine Bertolf (1525–1590), who was acquainted with the Spanish court and keen of the rare plants that thrived in the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid⁶³. She spread textual and visual information about the sunflower, and possibly also its seeds, among her network of naturalists and collectors, including the Flemish botanists Dodoens and Clusius⁶³. After Dodoens^{64: 295} depicted the first European sunflower in his herbal in 1568, images and descriptions of this species began to circulate in manuscripts of other naturalists and physicians in Europe (e.g., Matthioli^{65: preface}, Fragoso^{66: title page}, Monardes^{67: 109} and Clusius^{68: 14–15}). Thus, by the seventeenth century, Dutch scholars and collectors of exotic naturalia were familiar with sunflowers, which possibly promoted its cultivation at Johan Maurits’ gardens with ornamental purposes.

Interestingly, the sunflower is referenced as Camará-guaçú, an indigenous term from the macrolinguistic Tupi family. Camará, Kamará or Cambará is a generic name given to several unrelated species, such as Lantana camara L. (Verbenaceae) and Ageratum conyzoides L. (Asteraceae) (http://www.dataplamt.org.br/, accessed 2 June 2021), both found in the Theatrum (p. 341 and 343 respectively). According to Tibiriçá⁶⁹, in Tupi caa means plant and mbaraá means illness, and according to Cherini⁷⁰ Cambará means “leaf of rough bark”. Hence, Camara also refers to medicinal plants with rough leaves in general. Guaçú means big and miri small⁷¹, which matches with the larger inflorescence of H. annuus in contrast to the African weed Sida rhombifolia L. (Malvaceae), documented as Camara-miri in the HNB and “used by black people as a broom to sweep the houses of their masters”^{7: 110}. According to the Tupi-based nomenclature associated to H. annuus in the Theatrum, Tupi indigenous groups were already familiar with the sunflower in Brazil around the 1640 s.

Life forms and domestication status of the Libri Picturati plants

Most of the species in the Theatrum are tropical trees, followed by shrubs, herbs, and lianas (Fig. 4). Several are rainforest trees, such as Andira fraxinifolia Benth., Garcinia brasiliensis Mart. and Syagrus coronata (Mart.) Becc. The same trend was observed for the illustrations in the MC, with trees as the most often represented life forms, followed by shrubs, lianas and herbs. Typically, the LP contains much less trees, but more small herbs, shrubs and vines that were probably found in and around Mauritsstad (i.e., the former capital of Dutch Brazil, currently a part of the Brazilian city of Recife), such as Commelina erecta L. and Turnera subulata Sm., which commonly grow in disturbed landscapes.

Although the majority of the species depicted in the Theatrum and the MC are wild forest trees, some species are found both in the wild and cultivated, such as Psidium guineense Sw., which was part of the pre-Columbian anthropogenic forests or ‘indigenous landscape’ in Brazil^37,38,72. Some trees were planted in or around Recife. Hancornia speciosa Gomes, known by its Tupi-based name Mangabiba or Mangaiba [Mangabeira]^{7: 121}, was cultivated in Mauritsstad^{6: 242,40}. The fruit of H. speciosa (Mangaba) was harvested in great amounts as it was a highly appreciated food^{7: 122}. Seeds were collected to plant the tree, and Marcgrave gave details about the specific locations of varieties in different northeastern locations (Salvador, Sergipe and Olinda). H. speciosa was already selected and managed by indigenous groups before colonization³⁷, yet wild populations of this tree are still found in the Brazilian rainforest and savannah (http://floradobrasil.jbrj.gov.br/reflora/floradobrasil/FB15558, accessed 4 June 2021).

Domesticated plants are represented in higher proportions within the LP and the MC (Fig. 5), accounting mostly for introduced fruit species (Supplementary Dataset S1), such as Citrus spp., Musa x paradisiaca and Cocos nucifera L., which were cultivated in Maurits’ gardens in Recife⁴⁰. The influence of the European colonization of Brazil is also visible by the presence of weeds from Asia and Africa among the illustrations in the Theatrum and the LP, such as Abrus precatorius L., Argemone mexicana L., Boerhavia coccinea Mill. and Plumbago zeylanica L. Some of these plants were introduced from Africa via the slave ships, while others may have dispersed naturally⁴⁴. Guilandina bonduc L., an African scrambling shrub depicted as Inimboi in the Theatrum, was described by Piso^{7: 95} as “growing in abundance in sandy and dry forests of the coasts”. We categorized G. bonduc as a wild plant: its round seeds could have been brought by oceanic currents from West African shores and germinated in the coastal vegetation of Pernambuco and other South American areas⁷³. However, G. bonduc may also have reached Brazil during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, as the hard, grey seeds are used in the African game Oware and also used in bead ornaments⁷⁴.

Plant parts represented in the Libri Picturati

The way plants are depicted in the Libri Picturati provides us with information about the level of botanical skills of the artists, and how closely they worked together with the naturalists in the Dutch colony. Some plants are represented by only loose parts or depicted sterile, while others show us different organs and reproductive stages, which greatly facilitated their taxonomic identification (Table 2).

Most illustrations depict fertile plant species with flowers and fruits, often cut in half to show the seeds, which reveals a high level of botanical knowledge. Fertile plants are more common in the Theatrum, in a few occasions also showing their tubers, such as Spondias tuberosa Arruda, known as Umbi [Iva Umbu], of which the prominent tuber in the bottom front captures the attention of the observer (Fig. 6a). Likely associated to a scientific purpose, drawing some plant parts out of proportion corresponds to a pictorial style also observed in other iconographies. This is also the case in the Icones Plantarum Malabaricarum, which depicts plants from Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka) in the eighteenth century and often accentuates useful fruits, flowers or roots⁷⁵.

Piso^{7: 78} indicated that roots [tubers] of S. tuberosa deserved special attention, because of the way they developed underground and their use as a refreshment [water reservoir] for feverish patients and exhausted travelers, as he experimented himself. He and Marcgrave^{7: 108} also described how its fruits were valued as food. This example not only provides textual and visual evidence of the field trips to the interior by these naturalists and their first-hand experiments, but also adds insights into the connectedness between artistic and scientific practices in seventeenth century Dutch Brazil. Currently S. tuberosa, known as Umbu or Umbuzeiro (https://dataplamt.org.br/), is an important economic and subsistence food resource for rural communities in semiarid regions of northeast Brazil^76,77. Its specialized root system (xylopodia) bears tubers that store liquids, sugars and other nutrients and allow the survival of the tree during the dry seasons of the caatinga and central Brazilian savanna, where this species is endemic⁷⁸. The water or sweet juice of these xylopodia is still used as an emergency thirst quencher in extreme arid areas of the Brazilian sertão⁷⁹; also see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyGNlrljAww, accessed 25 August 2012].

In the Theatrum, a small proportion of plants are illustrated in their sterile stage, such as Hippeastrum psittacinum (Ker Gawl.) Herb. (Fig. 6b) or Ficus gomelleira Kunth & C.D.Bouché (Fig. 6c). Marcgrave^{7: 32} did not see the impressive flower of H. psittacinum as it is lacking in his observations^{25: 59}. The Theatrum painting must have been made in the wet season in the interior of Pernambuco, when Marcgrave and the painter(s) encountered the lily with only leaves, before these fall off and make place for the mesmerizing flower²⁵. Ficus gomelleira, depicted by a single oblong leaf with its characteristic pinnate venation (p. 157), is a large tree, up to 40 m tall (https://portal.cybertaxonomy.org/flora-guianas/node/3041, accessed 4 June 2021). It can be challenging to collect a branch, so the painter(s) or local assistants possibly picked a leaf from the ground (Fig. 6c).

The LP contains mainly flowering plants (e.g., Ruellia cf. elegans Poir.), tendrillate vines (e.g., Centrosema brasilianum (L.) Benth. (Fig. 6d)) and cultivated crops, such as peanuts (Arachis hypogaea L.), pumpkins (Cucurbita pepo L.) or guava (Psidium guajava L.) (Supplementary Dataset S1). Compared to the MC and the LP, a smaller proportion of the illustrations display only flowers or fruits in the Theatrum. Yet, these deserve special attention as the reasons for only painting the reproductive organs in the three collections may differ. While in the MC and LP flowers or fruits represent species that are domesticated or more likely to be found in urban areas, such as Capsicum baccatum L. or Hancornia speciosa, the Theatrum contains more loose parts of native plants found in the rainforest. Amphilophium crucigerum (L.) L.G.Lohmann is a liana referenced by the Tupi-related name Iaruparicuraba (Theatrum: 387) and today known in Brazil as pente-de-macaco (https://dataplamt.org.br/) due to its large dehiscent fruit (c.17 cm long) that opens in two valves covered with soft spines, hence its name “monkey’s comb” (Fig. 6e). Its winged seeds are not present in the drawing, possibly one empty valve was gathered from the ground, and the seeds were already dispersed by the wind.

In the MC, we also find some drawings of infertile structures, but these mostly belonged to species that were depicted on several folios. When assembling those folios, we observed the whole plant represented in its fertile stage: the watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. & Nakai) is depicted with its leaves and fruit on folio 63 (verso) and its leaves on folio 64 (recto). In the case of Furcraea foetida (L.) Haw., whoever bounded the drawings in the MC collection did not realize that folios 63 (recto), 64 (verso) and double folio 68 formed together one entire plant (See Supplementary Fig. S1).

On other occasions, the painters focused on painting the plant parts that were valuable to humans. Several rainforest trees were highly valued for its edible fruits or seeds, such as Hymenaea courbaril L.^{7: 101} or Lecythis pisonis L., of which the “seeds (also called chestnuts) were eaten raw or roasted”^{7: 128} and “were considered aphrodisiacs”^{7: 65}. The fruit of Macoubea guianensis Aubl. was “appreciated for its sweetness by the indigenous peoples to eat during their travels, while Europeans used it to treat chest affections”^{8: 242}. The fruit of Swartzia pickelii Killip ex Ducke was “not eaten unless it was cooked, from which the inhabitants made a wholesome delicacy for the stomach called Manipoy”^{8: 165}. The same applies to the tomato-like fruits of the African eggplant Solanum aethiopicum L., which were “eaten cooked, after seasoning with oil and pepper; it has lemon taste”^{7: 24}. While these plants are represented in the Theatrum only by their fruits (Supplementary Dataset S1), the tree branches or the whole plant are depicted in the written sources. The illustrations in the books were most likely made by Marcgrave, who aimed to describe and depict as many plant parts as possible, although compromising in aesthetic aspect. The painters, on the other hand, focused on the edible parts without sacrificing their aesthetics. In any case, the illustrations from the Theatrum and the woodcuts and descriptions in the HNB and IURNM often complemented each other and thus facilitated our identifications.

Current conservation status of the Brazilian species in the Libri Picturati

In the past centuries, the Atlantic Forest and savannah regions of northeast Brazil have been severely affected by habitat loss and degradation due to the expansion of urbanization, intensive agriculture, farming and logging^80,81. Several plant species that were abundant enough to be noted by European artists around 1640 are not common anymore today. According to the IUCN Red List, eight species in the Libri Picturati, seven in the Theatrum and one in the LP are currently experiencing population decline or are at risk of facing extinction (Supplementary Table S3). Several endemic plants from the northeast Atlantic rainforest and caatinga biomes appear in the illustrations. Four species in the Libri Picturati are currently CITES-listed and restricted to trade: the cacti Brasiliopuntia brasiliensis (Willd.) A.Berger, Cereus fernambucensis Lem., Epiphyllum phyllanthus (L.) Haw. and Melocactus violaceus subsp. margaritaceus N.P.Taylor The latter is an endemic cactus of the coastal sand dunes’ ecoregion in the Atlantic rainforest known as restinga, which is severely threatened by agricultural expansion and urbanization⁸².

Some endemic species are classified as Least Concern by the IUCN or the CNC Flora (12 species), while others (13 species) have not been evaluated yet (Supplementary Dataset S1). The MC does not contain threatened species, but includes two endemic trees: Attalea compta Mart. and Eugenia cf. brasiliensis Lam., which are only found in the biodiversity hotspots of the Atlantic rainforest and the cerrado, both greatly affected by habitat loss²³. The mangrove vegetation along the Brazilian coast has been severely affected by urbanization, pollution by industrial and domestic waste and climate change^83,84, threatening the populations of the mangrove trees Avicennia schaueriana Stapf & Leechm. ex Moldenke and Laguncularia racemosa (L.) C.F.Gaertn. The occurrence of anthropogenic impacts and the lack of available data call for the implementation of more in-depth and continuous studies on the conservation status of these vulnerable populations.

Linking the plant illustrations to the published works and Marcgrave’s herbarium

A total of 357 different plant species is described in the HNB and IURNM (Supplementary Dataset S2). Because the Theatrum constitutes a larger number of illustrations, we found more taxa from the books and the herbarium represented in this source (102 out of 163, 63%). However, the largest overlap was found between the MC and the HNB / IURNM: 21 out of 26 taxa (81%) were also described in the books. A smaller overlap exists between the LP and the HNB / IURNM (18 out of 34, 53%). We counted 143 taxa at species level in Marcgrave’s herbarium (Supplementary Dataset S3) and we observed some of these preserved species in all three pictorial works, with the largest percentage of taxa in common with the MC (seven out of 26, 27%), probably because of its smaller number of images. Strikingly, a third of the species illustrated in the whole Brazilian collection of the Libri Picturati could not be ascribed to the species described by Marcgrave or Piso (61 out of 180, 34%).

Source: Ecology - nature.com