Humboldt’s meeting with Mutis in Bogota in 1801, had an influence on Humboldt’s conception of phytogeography explained in Essai sur le géographie des plantes, the 14th volume of Voyage aux regions équinoxiales. This essay is a kind of treaty, which establishes the relationship between the development of botany and its environment, that is to say the relationship that exists between climate, the type of relief and the growth of a floral species for example. When reading this essay, we realized that Humboldt was mainly interested in altitude and exposed a very precise description of the different plants according to their area and altitude of development.

This digital object is the combination of a diplomatic transcription and digital edition of the 14th volume and a database cataloging the plant species that Humboldt and Bonpland studied while in New Granada. Its realization is not the fruit of chance, but the result of a reflection inspired by the study of the volume 14. For us, the challenge was to make the complexity of our object legible and easy to use. Indeed, while we introduce an object of two different natures, it still has to maintain a unity and legibility for the reader.

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