Jerónimo Lobo SJ and his Discourse of palm-trees in the context of seventeenth-century botany

Father Jerónimo Lobo SJ was on a mission to Ethiopia between 1624 and 1634, during which he travelled on foot through parts of Abyssinia and Eritrea. After a troubled period of life in India, he returned to Lisbon in 1657, where died in 1678. In Lisbon Lobo wrote one of his most important works, “Discurso das Palmeiras”, published in 1669 in an English translation by the Royal Society of London. In this work, Lobo described the morphology and uses of eight important palm trees. Two of these – “macomeira” (Hyphaene) and “trafolim” (Borassus) – were novelties to European botanists. An analysis of published works from this period, including lists of plants cultivated in botanical and private European gardens, indicates that when “Discurso” was published, printed descriptions of only some of the palms that Lobo described were available. At that period few palms were cultivated in British and Dutch gardens. The botanical novelties in Lobo's “Discurso” were most probably the reason for interest shown by the Royal Society. This remarkable seventeenth-century botanical account reflected Lobo's ability to observe nature (perhaps enhanced by academic training in Jesuit schools) during his walks through the Abyssinian empire.