Spanish pharmacist, professor of botany and director of the botanic gardens in Mexico City. Vicente Cervantes was born in Zafra, Badajoz province, and was a talented student, being especially drawn towards the study of pharmacy. His parents, however, could not afford to send him to university so he moved to Madrid where he became an assistant clerk in a pharmacy.
Cervantes spent his free time learning all he could about botany from a friend who was studying with Casimiro Goméz Ortiga, director of the Botanic Gardens of Madrid. He later petitioned the director to allow him to sit the examination for pharmacists, which he was granted largely due to its unprecedented nature, but which he passed with ease and was named a pharmacist in 1784. After this display Goméz Ortiga welcomed him as a pupil, field companion and close friend and Cervantes soon became the pharmacist (Boticario Mayor) for the General Hospital of Madrid.
He was chosen as a member of the Botanical Expedition to New Spain by Goméz Ortiga and he arrived in Mexico around 1787, under the direction of Martín Sessé. Sessé had just received funding from Carlos III to found a school of botany and botanic gardens in Mexico City and Cervantes joined him in establishing both. The following year Cervantes was made professor of botany and from here he was responsible for teaching the botany course while Sessé and the other botanists of the expedition concentrated on collecting all over the country for their Flora mexicana. The gardens were initially inappropriately placed and soon had to be moved, being permanently established in 1791 alongside the Viceroy's palace where Cervantes grew some 1,400 specimens for use in his classes. His course, which began in June of each year, enjoyed huge success and became almost a requisite to a well rounded education in Mexico.
In 1794 the rest of the expedition left for Guatemala or Cuba but Cervantes would remain in Mexico City in his continued role teaching botany. Later when Sessé left for Madrid in 1803, Cervantes was granted permission to stay, becoming official director of the gardens as well as lecturer and he would remain here until his death. Cervantes was also in charge of the pharmacy and botanic gardens of the Hospital of San Andrés and supported himself largely through the sale of drugs to the hospitals of the city and other establishments (he received a meagre pay from the government for his work at the gardens, which often failed to arrive with him at all). Collecting in the area, Cervantes maintained correspondence with the eminent botanist A. J. Cavanilles, sending many specimens to him in Madrid. In 1790 some of these formed the basis for the description of the genus Dahlia.
After his death many of his works remained un-edited in London and other European cities in which his numerous correspondents were based; he did, however, publish some essays, often in J. A. Alzate's Gazeta de Literatura Mexicana, including one on the medicinal plants of Mexico. His most important works were on the Panama Rubber tree which culminated in the establishment of the genus Castilloa, named after fellow Spanish-Mexican botanist Juan Diego Castillo who died on the expedition. H. Ruiz and J. Pavón of the Botanical Expedition to Peru dedicated the genus Cervantesia to his honour.
Sources:
Colmiero, M., 1858, La Botánica y Los Botánicos de la Península Hispano-Lusitana. Imprenta y Estereotipia de M. Rivadeneyra. Madrid.
García Montoya, F., 2003, Botánicos de los Siglos XVI, XVII y XVIII. Cabra. Córdoba.
Ricket, H. W., 1949, The Royal Botanical Expedition to New Spain. The Cronica Botanica Co. Waltham, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
San Pío Alardeen, M. P. and Puig-Samper Mulero, M. Á, Eds., 1999, Las Flores del Paraíso: La Expedición Botánica de Cuba en los Siglos XVIII y XIX. Real Jardín Botánico, Madrid.
Steele, A. R., 1964, Flowers for the King. Duke University Press, U.S.A.
