Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Historia general y natural de las Indias (Seville, 1535; complete edition Madrid, 1851-1855)

The first natural history of the Americas, and for three centuries the least read of them. Oviedo printed nineteen books at Seville in 1535 and left fifty; the rest stayed in manuscript until the Real Academia de la Historia hunted down the codices and printed the whole between 1851 and 1855. The 1535 books describe American plants from direct observation, organised by what each sense can report, and record the indigenous names first.