Manuel María Blanco Ramos known as Manuel Blanco (1779 – 1845) was a Spanish

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders in the Catholic Church. There are also friars outside of the Catholic Church, such as within the Anglican Communion. The term, first used in the 12th or 13th century, distinguishes the mendi ...

and

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

Biography

Born in Navianos de Alba,

Castilla y León Castile, Castille or Castilla may refer to: Places Spain * Castile (historical region), a vaguely defined historical region of Spain covering most of Castile and León, all of the Community of Madrid and most of Castilla–La Mancha * Kingdom o ...

, Spain, Blanco was a member of the Augustinian order of friars. His first assignment was in

Angat Angat may refer to: * Angat, Bulacan, a first class partially urban municipality in the province of Bulacan, Philippines * Angat River The Angat River (also called Quingua River) is a river in the Philippines located in the province of Bulacan. ...

in the province of

Bulacan Bulacan, officially the Province of Bulacan (; ; ; ), is a Provinces of the Philippines, province in the Philippines located in the Central Luzon Regions of the Philippines, region. Its capital is the city of Malolos. Bulacan was established on ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. He subsequently had a variety different assignments. Towards the end of his life, he became the delegate of his order in

Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

, traveling throughout the archipelago. He is the author of one of the first comprehensive flora of the Philippines, ''Flora de Filipinas. Según el sistema de Linneo'' (Flora of the Philippines according to the system of Linnaeus) which followed after the work done by

Georg Joseph Kamel Georg Joseph Kamel (; ; ; ; 12 April 1661 – 2 May 1706) was a Jesuit missionary, pharmacist and naturalist known for producing the first comprehensive accounts of Philippine flora and fauna and for introducing Philippine nature to the European l ...

. The first two editions (Manila, 1837 and 1845) were unillustrated. Celestine Fernandez Villar (1838-1907), together with others including Antonio Llanos, published an illustrated posthumous edition from 1877 to 1883, printed by C. Verdaguer of

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

. Blanco died in Manila in 1845. In 1918 the botanist

Elmer Drew Merrill Elmer Drew Merrill (October 15, 1876 – February 25, 1956) was an American botanist and taxonomist. He spent more than twenty years in the Philippines where he became a recognized authority on the flora of the Asia-Pacific region. Through ...

published an

exsiccata Exsiccata (Latin, ''gen.'' -ae, ''plur.'' -ae) is a work with "published, uniform, numbered set of preserved specimens distributed with printed labels". Typically, exsiccatae are numbered collections of dried herbarium Biological specimen, spe ...

named ''Species Blancoanae'' which was devoted to species described by Blanco. The botanist

Carl Ludwig Blume Charles Ludwig de Blume or Karl Ludwig von Blume (9 June 1796 – 3 February 1862) was a German-Dutch botanist and entomologist who spent most of his professional life in the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies. As deputy director of agricul ...

(1789-1862) named the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

Blancoa of the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Palmae The Arecaceae () is a family of perennial, flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are colloquially c ...

in his honor.

Books

*''Flora de Filipinas. Según el sistema sexual de Linneo'', Manila: 1837. *''Flora de Filipinas. Según el sistema sexual de Linneo... Segunda impression &c.'', Manila: 1845. *''Flora de Filipinas, según el sistema sexual de Linneo. Adicionada con el manuscrito inédito del. fr. Ignacio Mercado, las obras del fr. Antonio Llanos, y de un apéndice con todas las nuevas investigaciones botanicas referentes al archipiélago Filifino ic Gran edicion.'', Manila: 1877-1883

References

Bibliography

Biography at Royal Academy of the History of Spain
* Plates from ''Flora de Filipinas'' at Wikimedia Commons

* *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Blanco, Manuel Botanists active in the Philippines Spanish people in the colonial Philippines 19th-century Spanish botanists Botanists with author abbreviations 1779 births 1845 deaths Augustinian friars Missionary botanists