Biogeographical Relationships and Diversity in the Peruvian Flora Reported by Hipólito Ruiz and José Pavón: Vegetation, Uses and Anthropology.

The Royal Spanish Botanical Expedition to the Viceroyalty of Peru in the 18th century was one of the most important European expeditions to American territories. Using the herbarium sheets of Ruiz and Pavón (Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid) and their edited works, manuscripts and expedition diaries, we have constructed a database of the collected and observed flora, which has served as the basis for a map containing all of the Peruvian localities of the expedition. Based on the method of bioclimatic belts and our own observations, we have deduced to which type of vegetation the flora studied in the expedition belongs.