Francisco Noroña

Francisco Noroña , also Noronha , (* around 1748 Seville ; † January 12, 1788 in Mauritius ) was an English-Spanish botanist and doctor . Noroña toured Java and the Philippines . Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Noronha ".

Live and act

Noroña lived for a while in Manila in the Philippines , where he took care of the local botanical garden ("Royal Botanic Garden"). In 1786 he went on a botanical research trip to the island of Java . On the basis of a permit issued by the Governor General Alting, he was able to travel to the Priangan region in Java . He was accompanied by four Indonesian “Medicos-Herboristas” and a Dutch draftsman. The trip was canceled after a disagreement between Noroña and the draftsman. When he returned to Batavia (now Jakarta ), he sent an invoice for the amount of 14,200 ducats to the Batavian Society for Arts and Sciences , which, among other things, was supposed to cover his travel expenses. However, the amount seemed too high to society. Then Noroña decided to leave Java. He took his notes with him, leaving an alphabetical list of plants. In February 1787 he left; the ship took him to Mauritius . He fell ill with malaria and the bacterial dysentery. He died in Mauritius on January 12, 1788.

Honors

The plant genus Noronhia Stadm. has been named after him. A memorial was erected to him on the grounds of the garden in Manila, but it has not been rediscovered in recent times.

literature

• Robert Zander : Zander concise dictionary of plant names . Ed .: Fritz Encke , Günther Buchheim, Siegmund Seybold . 13th, revised and expanded edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-8001-5042-5 .

Web links

• Author entry and list of the described plant names for Francisco Noroña at the IPNI
• Short biography at Nationaal Herbarium Nederland (engl.)