The Victorians: A Botanical Perspective

Luís Manuel Mendonça de Carvalho is a biologist with an MSc. in Biochemistry and Physiology of Plants (Lisbon University) and a PhD in Systematics and Morphology (Coimbra University), with a thesis on Ethnobotany. He is a former visiting Scholar at Harvard University and is now a Coordinator Professor at Beja Polytechnic University (Portugal). He is the founder and director of the Beja Botanical Museum and a researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History (Lisbon Nova University) and the Mediterranean Institute for Agriculture, Environment and Development (Evora University). He holds the UNESCO Chair in Ethnobotany and the Safeguard of Plant-Based Heritage and, in 2003, received the Ford Motor Company Award and represented Portugal in the Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Preservation (UNESCO). He writes and lectures on the history of botany, especially on economic botany and ethnobotany.