New Genera of American Plants

...and other medical matters, he composed a most excellent work, printed in Rome in the year of Christ 1651, by the press of Vitalis Mascardi. Folio. This concludes the entry for Francisco Hernández, whose Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae Thesaurus was a monumental study of Mexican natural history.

P I S O N I A

Plate 11 Pisonia named for Willem Piso is a genus of plant with a single-petaled monopetalous flower, shaped like a bell and divided into many segments. From its calyx the outer protective envelope of the flower rises a pistil the seed-bearing organ fixed to the lowest part of the flower like a nail; this later develops into an oblong, angled fruit, which gaps open in five directions from the tip to the base, and is usually filled with an oblong seed.

I have seen only one species of Pisonia:

Prickly Pisonia with sticky and clustered fruit. original: Pisonia aculeata fructu glutinoso & racemoso

Willem Piso Latin: Guillelmus Piso of Leiden, Doctor of Medicine. He traveled through Brazil ...? with Georg Marcgraf and H. Cralitz, Germans and students of medicine ...? and mathematics. He composed and wrote four books on Brazilian medicine, the fourth of which treats the properties of Brazilian simples individual medicinal plants used as remedies, with over five hundred illustrations added. A work truly useful for Americans and worthy of the curious. It was published in Leiden and Amsterdam by the Elzevirs and the Hackius family in 1648 and 1658, in folio.

M A R C G R A V I A

Plate 29 Marcgravia named for Georg Marcgraf is a genus of plant with a single-petaled, bell-shaped flower, leaning over and surrounded by a pistil and stamens the pollen-producing organs which are usually cast off. The pistil later develops into a fruit that is nearly spherical, soft, and fleshy, in which many tiny seeds are nestled as if in a nest.

I have found only one species of Marcgravia:

Climbing Marcgravia with fruit arranged in a radiating pattern. original: Marcgravia scandens fructu radiatim posito

Georg Marcgraf of Liebstadt in Saxony, a German, wrote the Natural History of Brazil in eight books (the first three of which concern plants). For six years he was a diligent explorer of the inland regions, but he finally died while crossing over into Africa. Joannes de Laet of Antwerp organized his work into order, added many annotations, and filled in and illustrated various things omitted by the author. It was published together with Piso's History of Brazil in Leiden and Amsterdam by Elzevir in 1646, in Folio.