Taschen - Book - Martius. The Book of Palms

After an epic journey through the Amazon, German botanist Carl von Martius compiled an unparalleled catalogue of all palm species. His encyclopedic work, reproduced in this book, is a gem of 19th-century botany , renowned for its meticulous classification, maps, color landscapes, and diagrams.

On 15 December 1868, Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868) , professor of botany at the University of Munich and director of the Royal Botanical Garden, was carried to his burial in a coffin covered with freshly plucked palm leaves, a tribute to his groundbreaking Natural History of Palms: A Work in Three Volumes , published between 1823 and 1853.

This encyclopedic treasure trove of 240 exquisite chromolithographic illustrations is the result of Martius's expedition to Brazil and Peru. From 1817 to 1820, he traveled over 2,250 km across the Amazon basin to study natural history and Native American tribes with zoologist Johann Baptist von Spix.

From this expedition came this outstanding catalogue of all known species of the palm family , which established the modern classification of this tree, described all its species in Brazil and provided the first biogeographical maps of palms. Martius's folio is unusual in that it includes cross-sectional diagrams revealing the internal structure of these majestic trees that citizens of Central Europe would otherwise have had difficulty accurately imagining. Equally remarkable are the colour landscapes, which present various species of palms with simple and elegant beauty .

Hardcover, 15.6 x 21.7 cm, 1.13 kg, 512 pages