The volume and whereabouts of Humboldt and Bonpland’s botanical collections
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18443/395Parole chiave:
Botanical collections, number of different plants, numbers of species, digitized Paris plant specimens, unknown number of duplicates, Bonpland material lost in Argentina, discrepancies between Humboldt's own estimatesAbstract
Humboldt and Bonpland are often said to have collected 60,000 plant specimens representing 6,000 species. I review Humboldt’s estimates of the material collected in the Americas, discuss its whereabouts, and explain the difficulty in estimating specimen and species numbers due to problems with duplicate numbering. This led to at least 250 species being described twice. Based on field notes, they made 4,528 collections, aiming at three duplicates each. Of these, 3,525 survive in the Paris Bonpland herbarium, plus an unknown number in the general herbarium. Other herbaria are not yet fully digitized. Humboldt’s estimate (around 1800) of 4,200 species seems high, but the description of new species remains incomplete.
Dowloads
Pubblicato
Fascicolo
Sezione
Licenza
Copyright (c) 2026 Susanne Renner
Questo volume è pubblicato con la licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale 4.0 Internazionale.
Die Rechte der eingesandten Artikel bleiben bei den Autoren und werden unter einer Creative Commons-Lizenz (CC BY-NC 4.0) veröffentlicht. Alle bei HiN publizierenden Autorinnen und Autoren akzeptieren dieses Lizenzmodell.
Die Autorinnen und Autoren tragen die Verantwortung für das Einwerben der Bildrechte.
Die Rechte am Layout und Design der Zeitschrift sind nicht übertragbar und können nicht ohne vorherige Zustimmung von HiN in anderen Publikationen weiterverwendet werden.
