Flora Peruviana, et Chilensis (Madrid, 1798) and the royal expedition behind it

The first tome of the flora of Peru and Chile, printed at Madrid in 1798. Its preface states the rule the work was written to: with every species, the soil where it grows wild, the month it was seen in flower, the vernacular name its inhabitants use, and its medical virtues - the last learned, the authors say, from the mouths of the Indians as well as from professors of medicine. The same preface records eight hundred drawings lost in a shipwreck.