#rumphius

[kamreadsandrecs]

The Doomed Blind Botanist Who Brought Poetry to Plant Description

Somewhere in the great southern ocean that stretches south from Java there is a tree that grows straight out of the ocean floor. Its name is

[scientificillustration]

n496_w1150 by Biodiversity Heritage Library Via Flickr: D'Amboinsche Rariteitkamer ... :. T'Amsterdam :Gedrukt by François Halma,1705.. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/41006264

[kammartinez]

The Doomed Blind Botanist Who Brought Poetry to Plant Description

Somewhere in the great southern ocean that stretches south from Java there is a tree that grows straight out of the ocean floor. Its name is

[aktaombak]

[judasdac-blog]

Do you think you have it bad?  If so, look at what happened to Georg Eberhard Rumphius, a 17th-century botanist:

After going blind in 1670 due to glaucoma, Rumphius continued work on his six-volume manuscript with the help of others. His wife and child were lost to an earthquake and tsunami on February 17, 1674. In 1687, with the project nearing completion, the illustrations were lost in a fire. Persevering, Rumphius and his helpers first completed the book in 1690, but the ship carrying the manuscript to the Netherlands was attacked by the French and sank, forcing them to start over from a copy that had fortunately been retained. The Herbarium Amboinense finally arrived in the Netherlands in 1696. However, "the East India Company decided that it contained so much sensitive information that it would be better not to publish it."[3] Rumphius died in 1702, so never saw his work in print; the embargo was lifted in 1704, but then no publisher could be found for it. It finally appeared in 1741, thirty-nine years after Rumphius's death