field notes

Gardens, chagras, milpas (but not only)

Codigo de la Cruz Badiano

“A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, or enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature, as an ideal setting for social or solitary human life. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is control.”

Illustration from a Mexican Herbolarioum: De La Cruz, M (1552) Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis. Traducido al latin por Juan Badianus. Image in the Public Domain

Afanador Llach MJ. (2011) “Nombrar y representar. Escritura y naturaleza en el Códice De la Cruz-Badiano, 1552.” en Fronteras de la Historia, vol. 16-1, Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia, Bogotá

Engraving from 1770 of Uppsala’s Linnaean garden

Hortus Botanicus is one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world (Mexico probably was first). It was established in 1638 by the city municipality as Hortus Medicus, that is an herb garden with medical plants to eb used by the doctors and pharmacists of. Amsterdam during the plague…