In 1799, the renowned German polymath Alexander von Humboldt, accompanied by French botanist Aimé Bonpland, embarked on a five-year trip to South America.

One copy went to France to be retrieved for Bonpland and one to London through John Fraser to the German botanist Carl Ludwig Willdenow, Humboldt's friend and early instructor.

The localities of all these plants, as described in the 'Nova Genera et Species Plantarum in Peregrinatione ad Plagam Aequinoctialem Collectarum,' [4] are denoted with the barometric determination of the height above the sea, a detail which has never before been introduced into any botanical work.

These volumes were employed by the celebrated German botanist Carl Sigismund Kunth, Director of the Botanic Gardens at Berlin, in editing at Paris the 'Nova Genera et Species.'

[5] In tracking the priority for the discovery and reporting of the cow-tree, it is documented that Brosimum utile (Kunth) Oken was published in: Allgemeine Naturgeschichte fur alle Stande.

3(3): 1571 (1841) [6] [7] It took 41 years from when Humboldt discovered this tree and wrote about it in letters from South America to friends in Europe (although known to the Native Americans), to when Kunth was able to compile and definitely publish this and other findings.

The tree can be found in the rainforest of Golfo Dulce Retreat, where typical features of this species may be observed, including buttresses from which Brosimum utile's classic white latex may be extracted.