Exhibition celebrates great botanical expedition of the Spanish Enlightenment

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Exhibition celebrates great botanical expedition of the Spanish Enlightenment

By Megan Backhouse

On July 30, 1789, Alejandro Malaspina set sail from the Port of Cadiz in Spain for a five-year expedition around the world that stopped at a string of places, including South America, North America, China and Port Jackson, New South Wales. In what was hailed as one of the most important ventures of the Spanish Enlightenment, tens of thousands of plant specimens were collected, dried and taken to Spain to be researched, with almost 16,000 flowering plants, mosses, algae and fungi deposited at the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid.

The 225th anniversary of this expedition is being marked with an exhibition at Library at The Dock, 107 Victoria Harbour Promenade, Docklands, until July 12. The show, organised by the Spanish Embassy in Australia, the Spanish Consulate in Melbourne and the Instituto Cervantes, and supported by the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, features reproductions of material from a number of archives and museums in Madrid as well as two botanic samples and a hand drawing held by the National Herbarium of Victoria.

Description and illustration of Stipa micanthra by Antoni-Josep Cavanilles from Cavanilles, A.J. (1799), Icones et Descriptiones Plantarum Vol. 5.

Description and illustration of Stipa micanthra by Antoni-Josep Cavanilles from Cavanilles, A.J. (1799), Icones et Descriptiones Plantarum Vol. 5.

WORKSHOP

Reusing, recycling and generally making do with what's to hand will be the theme of the Thrifty Gardening workshop at Carlton's Kathleen Syme Library on June 30. The workshop, one of a series of gardening events being held at the library, runs from 12.30pm to 1.30pm at 251 Faraday Street, Carlton, and, while it's free, bookings are required. Go to melbourne.vic.gov.au or phone 9658 7300 for more information.

Isotype of Stipa micanthra Cav. Collected by Luis Nee, in Nova Hollandia.

Isotype of Stipa micanthra Cav. Collected by Luis Nee, in Nova Hollandia.

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