Felix de Avelar Brotero

Félix de Avelar Brotero (born Félix da Silva e Avelar; Loures, November 25, 1744 – Lisbon, August 4, 1828) was a botanist, bryologist and Portuguese mycologist. In his honor, the Sociedade Broteriana was founded, a scientific association that through its Boletim had great importance in the development of Botany in Portugal.

Biography

He took refuge in France, in Paris in 1778, to escape the Inquisition. Here he spent twelve years and published in Portuguese, a Compendio da Botánica in order to earn a living, a work that gave him immediate notoriety as a botanist.

He obtained the chair of Botany at the University of Coimbra. She enlarges and renovates the Botanical Garden of Coimbra, while studying plants from all over the world, especially tropical ones such as tea.

At the age of 83, he published a memoir on the desertification of the island of Cape Verde, a treatise on sweet potatoes and another on resinous trees.

Eponymy

Gender

Species

Work

• Principles of agriculture philosophica. Coimbra: Imp. da Universidade, 1793
• Flora Lusitanica: seu plantarum, quae in Lusitania vel sponte crescunt: vel frequentuns colunter, ex florum praesertim sexuleus systematic distributarum: synopsis. Olissipone: Ex Typogr. Regia, 1804. 2 vols.
• Phytographia Lusitaniae selectior..., seu Novarum, rariorum, et aliarum minus cognitarum stirpium, quae in Lusitania sponte' veniunt, ejusdemque floram spectant, descriptiones iconibus illustratae. Olisipone: Typographia Regia, 1816-27. 2 tomos
• Compêndio de botânica: addicionado e posto em harmonia com os contrecimentos actuaes desta sciencia, segundo os botanicos mais célebres, como Mirbel, De Candolle, Richard, Lecoq, e outros, by Antonio Albino da Fonseca Benevides. Lisbon: Typ. Academia Real das Sciencias 1837-1839. 2 vols.

Bibliography used

• Castel-Branco, Cristina. Félix de Avelar Brotero: botaniste portugais (1744-1828). Paris/Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2004. (Présences portugaises en France. Sciences)
• Fernandes, Abílio. Felix de Avellar Brotero and his work. Alcobaça: Typegraphia Alcobacense 1944. (Separata do Anuário da Sociedade Broteriana)
• Palhinha; Ruy Telles. Work and life of Félix de Avelar Brotero. Lisbon, 1950. (Sep. Memosrias, classe de ciências, 5)