Martín Sessé y Lacasta facts for kids

Martín Sessé y Lacasta (born December 11, 1751 – died October 4, 1808) was a Spanish scientist who studied plants. He moved to New Spain (which is now Mexico) in the 1700s. His main goal was to learn about and organize all the different plants growing there.

Early Life and Studies

Martín Sessé y Lacasta first studied medicine in a city called Zaragoza in Spain. In 1775, he moved to Madrid, the capital. A few years later, in 1779, he became a doctor for the military. This job allowed him to travel to places like Cuba and later to New Spain.

In 1785, he was chosen to work for the Royal Botanical Garden in New Spain. At the same time, a new botanical garden was approved in Mexico. A special course to study Mexican plants was also started at the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico (now known as UNAM). Martín Sessé then decided to stop working as a doctor. He wanted to spend all his time studying plants.

The Big Plant Adventure

In 1786, King Charles III of Spain gave permission for a huge plant-finding trip. This trip was called the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Spain. Martín Sessé had suggested this idea because most of Mexico's plants and animals were unknown to European scientists. Sessé became the leader of this expedition and also the head of the new botanical garden.

He started getting ready for the trip in 1787. It took a lot of planning and time. He visited places like Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. In these places, smaller plant studies had already happened. He went there to learn and work with other scientists. In Cuba, he even helped look for a cure for a fast-spreading sickness caused by parasites.

Back in New Spain, other Spanish plant scientists joined him. These scientists were chosen by Casimiro Gómez Ortega, who was the director of the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid. Some of the important people who joined were:

• Vicente Cervantes: He was the first professor to teach about plants in New Spain. He lived there until he died in 1829.
• José Longinos Martínez: He set up the first natural history museum in the area.
• Juan Diego del Castillo: He was a pharmacist and also studied plants.
• José Maldonado.

Another important plant scientist was José Mariano Mociño, who was from New Spain. For the art, Juan Cerda was the official artist for the expedition. A Mexican artist named Atanasio Echeverría also helped with the drawings. A type of plant called Echeveria was later named after him.

The scientists split into different groups and traveled to many far-off places. They went to the Pacific coast of Canada, the Caribbean islands, Yucatán, Nicaragua, and San Francisco. Sessé and Mociño mostly worked in the central part of Mexico. Their jobs included collecting plant samples. They also had artists with them to draw the living plants right where they found them.

In 1793, Castillo died in Mexico. He had written a book about plants found on a trip to Acapulco. A plant group called Castilla was named after him by Vicente Cervantes. Even though the work of these scientists finished in 1803, their findings were not published until the 1880s.

A famous explorer and scientist named Alexander von Humboldt and his plant-studying friend Aimé Bonpland saw some of Sessé's and Mociño's work. They saw it in the Museum of Natural History in Madrid before their own big trip to Spanish America in 1799. However, they never actually met Sessé and Mociño. Humboldt later said that "things prevented me from getting advice from these important scientists, whose ideas could have been very helpful to me."

After the Expedition

After the expedition ended, Sessé went back to Spain with all his scientific collections. He planned to work on a book called Flora Mexicana. Sadly, he died in Madrid in 1808 before he could publish it. His scientific collections are now kept at the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid. They include about 7,100 sheets of dried plants, representing 200 plant groups and 3,500 new types of plants. A plant expert named Rogers McVaugh, who knows a lot about Mexican plants, has written about how important the results of this expedition were for the plant science community.

The many paintings made during the expedition stayed with Mociño. He had gone with Sessé to Spain after the expedition. However, the paintings seemed to disappear after Mociño died in 1820 in Barcelona. He had lived in France and Switzerland during times of political trouble in Spain before settling in Barcelona. The paintings became part of a private library. No one realized how important they were until 1980. In 1981, the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation bought the collection from the Torner family. It included about 1,800 plant drawings and 200 animal drawings. These amazing illustrations can now be studied at the Hunt Institute and are also available to view online.

To honor the leaders of the expedition, several plant groups were named after them. These include Sessea, Sesseopsis, Mocinna, Mozinna, and Mocinnodaphne.

Other Important Expeditions

King Charles III approved four major plant-finding trips to the Spanish colonies. These were:

• Hipólito Ruiz López and José Antonio Pavón went to Peru and Chile (1777–1788).
• José Celestino Mutis went to New Granada (1783–1808).
• Juan de Cuéllar went to the Philippines (1786–1797).
• Sessé y Lacasta went to New Spain (1787–1803).

See also

In Spanish: Martín Sessé y Lacasta para niños