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A LETTER FROM THE FRENCH WISE ON CORRENTINE “WATER CORN”: THE IRUPÉ

Quarto (26.8 x 21.3 cm), 4 pp. handwritten, with little loss of text. The document is accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity.


The note was addressed to Dr. Fredricks and he deals with “water corn”, a plant that grows in the Northeast -it is endemic to the basins of the Paraná and Paraguay river - and that today we know under the name of irupé, or yrupé.


The French scholar, Aimé Jacques A. G. Bonpland (1773 - 1858) participated in the expedition to America led by Alexander von Humboldt -his personal friend- between 1799 and 1804. Seduced by Bernardino Rivadavia, he arrived in Buenos Aires in 1817; on Argentine soil he carried out numerous scientific campaigns and in 1820, he moved to the province of Corrientes -to the Santa Ana colony, in dispute with Paraguay- determined to cultivate yerba mate, which at that time was monopolizing the neighboring country.


The news provoked an immediate reaction from Supreme Dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, who ordered the destruction of the colony, the arrest of the French scientist and his transfer to Paraguayan soil with a travel ban for ten years, as happened, but with freedom of movements within the village. It is known that all his manuscripts were also kidnapped and those that he produced in his long and forced stay, when he left for Argentina again, deposited in a chest, were lost after a storm. (1)


Transcription (partial):

Mr. Dr. D. Frederick.

My dear friend.

I have the particular pleasure of sending you, in a well welded tin box, the seeds of the famous plant known in Corrientes as corn of water.


A figure of this plant can be seen in the Penny Magazine of February 1838, which has been given the name Victoria Regina and also in The Illustrated London News, page 328.


For the first time I have found this plant in Corrientes in 1821; I made its description and determined it as having to belong to the genus Nymphea. Now the botanists will determine their fate, I mean if it is a Nymphea or belongs to another genus.


Water corn is an aquatic plant and it seems to me that the following precautions are needed to achieve its perfect vegetation (...)

Notes: 1. Ch. R. de la Croix-Riche Chanet: French in the Río de la Plata and the South Atlantic 1526 - 1876. Buenos Aires, Mega Libro Editores, 2004, p. 714. SEH-IX

AUTHOR BONPLAND, AIMÉ
PRICE U$S 650

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