Louis van Houtte

Louis Benoît van Houtte (29 June 1810 Ypres – 9 May 1876 Ghent) was a Belgian horticulturist who was with the Jardin Botanique de Brussels between 1836 and 1838 and is best known for the journal Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe, produced with Charles Lemaire and M. Scheidweiler, an extensive work boasting more than 2,000 coloured plates in 23 volumes published between 1845 and 1883.

Early in his career van Houtte worked in Brussels for the ministry of finance. All his leisure time was spent on botany at the botanical garden and private estates. He was on good terms with men like Parmentier, Édouard Parthon de Von (1788–1877), and d’Enghien and befriended local gardeners.

Together with Charles François Antoine Morren, van Houtte founded L'Horticulteur Belge (1833–1838), a monthly magazine, in November 1832. The 119 hand-coloured plates that were published are engravings or sometimes lithographs. There are also 78 plates showing delicate engravings of views. This period in Belgium after 1830 is characterised by a close collaboration between nurseries and the foremost botanists, allowing the English stranglehold on horticulture to be broken.

Van Houtte also started a shop selling seeds and garden tools. Botany continued to hold his interest, and the tropical plants flooding into Europe provided a wealth of material for study.

Devastated by the loss of his wife to whom he had been married only a short while, he set off to Brazil to collect orchids for Parthon de Von and the Belgian King, while the botanical garden, which was a commercial company by then, would take any new seed he brought back.

He left for Rio de Janeiro on 5 January 1834, but due to bad weather and stopping over at Maio in the Cape Verde islands, only arrived in May 1834. Whilst in Rio, he climbed Corcovado and collected in Jurujuba. Having difficulty in coping with carrying all his equipment, he employed an assistant on a trip to the Organ Mountains.

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