The Collection of natural impressions –Ectypes- of plants from Ecuador by Francisco José de Caldas (1768–1816). I – Characteristics, Distinctive Features, and Taxonomic Identification

Abstract

Around 1801, Francisco José de Caldas (1781–1816), at the suggestion of José Celestino Mutis, undertook a thorough botanical study in Ecuador as an assistant or commissioner number of the Royal Botanical Expedition, a project that would continue until 1805. The results of his collecting expeditions were fruitful, as evidenced by the manuscripts, illustrations, and herbarium specimens he gathered—nearly 6,000 dried specimens of Ecuadorian plants that enriched the Expedition’s herbarium in Bogotá and contributed to the great Flora of Bogotá proyect to which Mutis devoted his life. In addition to the aforementioned herbarium and a small group of watercolors or “Drawings of Selected Plants of Ecuador,” Caldas produced a large collection of natural impressions of plants on paper, or ectypes, featuring the species he collected and studied during his various journeys. This collection is preserved in the Archives of the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid and was only recently located and linked to Mutis’s Expedition. This collection of 1,029 ectypes, contained only a few generic identifications from the time of that expedition and remained unstudied until recent years.

Building upon previously published findings regarding these materials and as a result of the present study, the identification phase has been completed, revealing 929 plant species representing 148 families and 510 genera of ferns, gymnosperms, and angiosperms—undoubtedly a highly representative sample of the flora of certain areas of the Ecuadorian highlands. Notable features of this collection include, among others, the following: a) some of the ectypes depicted more than one plant (ranging from two to six plants in 16 cases), in most cases, plants associated with crops or inhabited areas; b) in a very large number of cases (157 ectypes from 29 families, 48 genera, and 57 species), supplementary ectypes were created to rdepict different parts of the same plant—in several species of Rubiaceae from the Cinchona group; or what we have interpreted as experiments or tests involving ink impregnation and the transfer of the plant’s natural pigments onto the paper of the ectypa were found, involving plants from various families; d) Ectypas impregnated with natural dyes from certain flowers and fruits of plants were also found, as well as evidence of partial, post-coloration of the ectypa (in 14 ectypas, from 10 families and 12 species).

1. e) The comprehensiveness of Caldas’s sampling is also evident in the good representation of the different forms of life (lianas, small herbs, trees, etc.) and in the variety of habitats reflected in the plants collected (aquatic, epiphytic, parasitic, cultivated or accompanying weeds), including some rare records of plants that appear to be adventitious in Ecuador, in those years. Finally, one point worth highlighting regarding the care with which Caldas carried out his work in Ecuador is that today we are able to establish a correspondence between several of the sheets, the drawings (watercolours) and the paper prints, aided by Caldas’s original numbering, which has been preserved on some of his herbarium sheets. The work on identifying Caldas’s materials presented in this first installment seeks to interpret the meticulous methodology Caldas followed in his flora project and is intended to serve as the basis for a forthcoming final publication on the annotated catalog of Caldas’s ectypes and drawings. The aim is for this valuable information collected by Francisco José de Caldas in Ecuador to become an integral part of the knowledge and publication of the floras currently underway in Colombia and Ecuador.