ABOUT THE WORK

Fray Francisco Manuel Blanco, O.S.A. was a Spaniard who was born in 1778 and who died in Manila in 1845. He joined the Augustinian Order at the age of 26 and was immediately sent to the Philippine Mission, where he became the parish priest in many towns, notably in Angat, Bulacan and in San Jose, Batangas, where he designed and built the church. In 1837 he published in Manila the first edition of ‘Flora de Filipinas,’ his comprehensive work on Philippine Botany. Based on the system of Linneaus, it described and classified 1,200 plants and gave the vernacular names of each. This edition, as well as the second one published also in Manila in 1845, did not have any illustrations, but nevertheless made him famous in Europe. In 1880 the Augustinian Order in the Philippines published a grand edition of the Flora de Filipinas that was printed in Manila by Plana and Cia. It contained additional unedited manuscripts written by Fray Antonio Llanos and an appendix containing all the new botanical investigations and references in the Philippine Archipelago. The work was supervised by Fr. Andres Naves and Fr. Celestino Fernandez-Villar, both of whom were Augustinian monks. The edition came in four volumes of text with some prints accompanied by two volumes containing 463 black and white botanical prints. The engraver of the prints was M. Perez, a resident of Manila.