The Lost Amazon – The Photographic Journey of Richard Evans Schultes –

“In 1941 Richard Evans Schultes took leave of Harvard University and disappeared into the north west Amazon of Colombia. Twelve years later, he returned having gone places no outsider had ever been, mapping uncharted rivers and living among two dozen Native American Indian tribes while collecting some thirty thousand botanical specimens, including two thousand novel medicinal plants and three hundred species new to science. The greatest Amazonian botanical explorer of the twentieth century, Schultes was not only a living link to the great naturalists of the Victorian age but the world authority on toxic, medicinal and hallucinogenic plants.

The Lost Amazon is the first major publication to examine Richard Evans Schultes’s work through his photographs. Over the course of two decades, he took more than ten thousand images of plants, of landscapes, and of the indigenous peoples with whom he lived. Among his collection are images of teananacatl, the sacred hallucinogenic mushrooms known to the Aztec as Flesh of the Gods, and whose identification sparked the psychedelic era. There are also photos from the heart of the rain forest, a mantle of green that once stretched across entire continents. Most importantly, there are portraits of many peoples never before photographed, lovingly and respectfully captured in moments of unguarded innocence that reflect his deep relationships with the native peoples.

Schultes earned many accolades for his work, including the Cross of Boyaca, Colombia’s most prestigious honour, as well as the Linnean Gold medal, the highest honour awarded to a botanist. he was made Director of the Botanical Museum at Harvard University, and he published more than four hundred scientific papers and numerous books before he died ion 2001. His legacy, however, lives on in his photographs, revealing portraits of the people and places that make up this planet. With 124 illustrations.”