Louis van Houtte

Louis Benoît van Houtte (29 June 1810, in Ypres – 9 May 1876, in Ghent) was a Belgian horticulturist who was with the Jardin Botanique de Brussels between 1836 and 1838 and is best known for the journal Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe, produced with Charles Lemaire and M. Scheidweiler,[1][2] an extensive work boasting more than 2,000 coloured plates in 23 volumes published between 1845 and 1883.

Devastated by the loss of his wife to whom he had been married only a short while, he set off to Brazil to collect orchids for the Knight Parthon de Von and the Belgian King, while the botanical garden, which was a commercial company by then, would take any new seed he brought back.

He left for Rio de Janeiro on 5 January 1834, but due to bad weather and stopping over at Maio in the Cape Verde islands, only arrived in May 1834.

His next excursion was to Minas Gerais, which he explored for seven months, falling under the spell of the constantly changing scenery between Villa Rica and Ouro Preto.

Van Houtte's botanical knowledge, business acumen, and facility with languages led to his commercial success and the office of mayor of Gentbrugge.