The Swedish botanist Eric Leonard Ekman. His extraordinary life and unparalleled botanical work in the Caribbean. The book Plantae Ekmanianae.

Erik Leonard Ekman, travelled to the Caribbean and worked there during the first half of the XX century. Many species of plants, new and unknown to science, were discovered and collected by him in Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.  Ekman never returned to Sweden and died in the Caribbean after two decades of passionate scientific work full of difficulties.

Ekman is without doubt one of the principal botanical collectors of all times. The fact that he worked alone in the field and with scarce resources, makes him unique amongst the botanical explorers. Eight genera of flowering plants carry his name.  He discovered approximately 2,000 new species and around 40 genera of plants. One must go back and think, for example, of Carl Peter Thunberg, a disciple of Linnaeus, or of the German explorer Alexander von Humboldt, to find parallels in the history of botanical exploration.