Majestic palm trees: tropical nature and imagination in the context of nineteenth century European imperialism.

Abstract

This article analyzes how palm trees were represented in the nineteenth century as majesties of tropical nature by European botanists and horticulturists amid an imagination of colonial domination. To this end, I will examine texts and images in horticultural publications, printed in England, France, Belgium and Portugal, which repeatedly conveyed the idea of the tropics as a place governed by its nature, in which the palm tree gained centrality, in contrast to Europe, taken as a model of civilization. It was in this context that the sumptuous palm houses came to be constructed, which also functioned as privileged symbols of European domination over the tropics.