Photos by ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes

Richard Evans Schultes (1915-2001) was the grandfather of ethnobotany, the relationship between plants and people. The Harvard professor, who documented 200 new species and cataloged 2,000 medicinal plants, wrote a book on LSD with Albert Hoffman, raised awareness about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, and directly influenced the likes of EO Wilson, Andrew Weil, and William Burroughs. Schultes was a scientist, explorer, psychonaut, and photographer. Indeed, his field photographs, collected in the book The Lost Amazon, are now on display at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Seen here, a 1942 photo of a shaman from Río Sucumbíos. From Smithsonian magazine:

(Schultes) inspired a generation of Harvard students to become leaders in botany and rain forest preservation—including Mark Plotkin, president of the Amazon Conservation Team and author of the best-selling Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice. "Here was a guy who went off to the unknown and not only lived to tell about it, he came back with all kinds of cool stuff," Plotkin says.

While most outsiders before him treated the indigenous tribes with condescension that often culminated in violence, Schultes viewed them "as his mentors," says (Schultes's former student and famed ethnobotanist Wade) Davis.

Richard Evans Schultes photos (Smithsonian), Buy The Lost Amazon (Amazon!)

UPDATE:
Previously on BB:
• Richard Evans Schultes's Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants

Discussion

Take a look at this

#1 posted by Takuan , August 26, 2008 1:14 PM

WANT!

#2 posted by flip , August 26, 2008 1:49 PM

The Father of Enthenobotany
Mentor to Tim Plowman and Wade Davis
he was a GIANT in the field of botanical knowledge.

Strongly Suggested Reading "One River" by Wade Davis
for a review of RES's amazing life

The man discovered and has named over 300 different species of life after him. So much so that they ran out of ways to include his name and had to start resorting to using his initials.

#3 posted by flip , August 26, 2008 2:07 PM

As a professor he used to keep a large bucket full of dried peyote tops for his students extra credit assignments.
This was before the "psychedelic 60's" when such religious plants we're often unknown territory.

In the late 1930's as a young harvard student traveled to the american southwest to study the "peyote cult" of the american indians with fellow student Weston La Barre.
Both regularly attended curing ceremonies when dozens of buttons were consumed per individual. Richard would later testify before congress as to the nature and use of this pant as a positive influence upon those that are engaged with it.

#4 posted by dr.hypercube