New World Cultivation and Sacrifice (details): Exotic American Plants
 ?Anaiou, cashew (Anacardium occidentale) |  Coca (Erythroxylum coca) (imag. rendering) |  Balsa (Ochroma lagopus) |  Coconut (Cocos nucifera) (imag. rendering) |  ?Guaiacum sp., syphilis remedy |
 Maguey (Agave americana) |  Sanguis draconis, Dracaena sp. |  "Flor," maize (Zea mays) |  Balsam (Myroxylum sp.) |  Tuna (Nopalea coccinellifera) |
 Sweet-gum (Liquidambar sp.) |  Cassia sp. |  Plantain (Musa paradisiaca) |  Cacao (Theobroma cacao) |  Pineapple (Ananas sativus) |
| These depictions are variably accurate, but many are based on the best illustrations then available; quite a few of the source-illustrations for Valades' plant-panorama are included in chap. 7 ("Flora") of Ernst and Johanna Lehner's classic volume of early New World graphics, How They Saw the New World, ed. Gerard L. Alexander (New York, 1966). The odd fountain-like tree near the front of the scene seems to be the imagined Arbor Santo "which always drops water from its leaves," also pictured in Girolamo Benzoni's Historia (Venice, 1572); illustrations for this book (repr. in History of the New World, tr. W. H. Smyth [London, 1857], 88, 149, 263) may also support different ways of deciphering the first and the fifth of the species-names given above, as mamei and guaiaua, respectively. |
Rampant Prickly-Pear (Tuna var.) -- Banana (Musa) with Fruits -- Guatemala / Cacao -- New World Trees Besieged, with a coco palm
Petum or Tobacco (N. Y. Public Library) // Hovia / Hobos, from Gómara / Lehner // Return to New World Cultivation and Sacrifice