Royal Botanical Expedition to New Spain

[1] It was sponsored by King Charles III of Spain and headed by physician Martín Sessé y Lacasta, who led a team of botanists that included José Mariano Mociño and is part of the crown's general program of economic revitalization, known as the Bourbon Reforms.

He wrote to the Spanish botanist Casimiro Gómez Ortega suggesting a botanical expedition that would serve two purposes: first to classify the natural resources of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and second to implement new health-related procedures in the colonial territories.

Once he returned to the Mexican mainland, Sessé was joined by a team of Spanish scientists and botanists chosen by the director of the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid.

A large garden of 56.25 hectares was to be established in central Mexico City to cultivate and propagate plants of New Spain that were of economic interest to the crown.

[4] During the first year the members of the expedition only made short journeys into the countryside, besides assisting in the creation of Mexico's Botanical Garden, which opened on March 27, 1788.

When they reached Guadalajara, the group split in two, with Mociño, del Castillo, and Echeverría heading for Aguas Calientes, via Álamos and Tarahumara, while Sessé traveled to the same destination via an alternative route crossing Sinaloa.

When they regrouped in Aguas Calientes in 1792, they were made aware of a royal provision ordering them to travel to Nootka Island, which at the time was under litigation between Spain and Great Britain.

All explorers set route for the northwest coast, except Juan del Castillo, who died of scurvy in 1793, shortly after having finished his book Plantas descritas en el viaje de Acapulco.

In March 1794, Sessé was granted permission to extend the expedition in order to further explore Central America, specially Guatemala, Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico.

He entrusted some of the manuscripts and drawings related to the expedition to the Swiss botanist Augustin de Candolle, who had some 1200 of the illustrations copied by local artists in Geneva in early 1817 before giving the originals back to Mociño.

[1] After Sessé and Mociño died, other botanists like Gómez Ortega, de Candolle, and Mariano Lagasca published new species based on their plants and drawings.