The Portuguese sailors were instrumental in the Age of Discovery, exploring Africa, Canada, Asia, and Brazil in the 15th-16th centuries. Through these explorations, many plant species were exchanged between regions, with major global ecological and economic impacts. Crops like sugarcane, potatoes, maize, cocoa, coffee, bananas, and spices were introduced from their places of origin in Asia and Africa to Europe and the Americas, transforming global agriculture and trade. Many staple foods in Portuguese cuisine today, like cinnamon and rice for dessert, trace their origins to other parts of the world.

1. THE ADVENTURE
OF THE PLANTS
& THE
DISCOVERIES

2. The Portuguese sailors were at the vanguard of
European overseas exploration, discovering and
mapping the coasts of Africa, Canada, Asia and Brazil,
in what became known as the Age of Discovery.
The discoveries initiated contacts between Europe and
new worlds. Through them, numerous species of plants
were exchanged between diverse regions of the globe
with an enormous global impact, both ecological and
economic.

3. CANTINO PLANISPHERE, 1502
Nautical map showing the Portuguese discoveries

4. During the Discoveries of 15th and 16th centuries,
on which the East spices were the main target,
the Portuguese went south searching for a path
between the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean and
the Spanish went west – both of them were
conditioned by the Treaty of Tordesillas, which set
the boundaries and divided the conquest realms
between the two kingdoms.
The Portuguese went through the African coast
reaching Cape Verde and then, with knowledge of
the trade winds, they went southwest to Brazil,
returning after to Africa, near the Cape of Good
Hope.

5. During this period, the connections between the
African east coast and the Americas were intensified
due to the slavery need for the farming activities on
the American colonies of the Europeans colonizers:
Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch and English.
From the west coast of Africa were introduced in
America a variety of plants that the slaves used to
consume in their homeland such as palm oil and
yams. The other way around occured too: sweet
potato, peppers, tomatoes, maize, tobacco,
pineapple, and later, coffee Arabica and cacao
where brought from the Americas to the African west
coast.

6. Even thought the story of tea begins in China in 2737 BC – it was
only in the latter half of the 16th century that some brief mentions of
tea as a drink among Europeans appeared.
These were mostly from Portuguese who were living in the East as
traders or missionaries and some of these individuals have brought
back samples of tea to their native country.
However, it was the marriage of Charles II of England to Catherine of
Bragança in 1662 that would prove to be a turning point in the history
of tea in Britain. This Portuguese princess was known to be a tea
addict and it was her love for the drink that established tea as a
fashionable beverage first in England and, afterwards, in the rest of
the occidental world.
TEA

7. Cinnamon, originally from China and India, is
a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree
species from the genus Cinnamomum.
Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and
flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, as well
as sweet and savoury dishes.
CINNAMON

8. Ginger (Zingiber officinale), originally from tropical Asia,
was one of the spices exported during the spice trades
and the Portuguese brought it to Portugal from the first
commercial trips to India, where it was abundant and
locally produced.
Despite also being used to cook in western cuisine,
ginger has a very long history of use in various forms of
traditional / alternative medicine: it has been used to help
digestion, reduce nausea and helps fighting the flu and
common cold.
GINGER

9. The pepper plant is native to southwestern India and is
extensively cultivated there and in other tropical regions
such as Brazil, Myanmar, Vietnam and Indonesia.
Black pepper (Piper nigrum) is a flowering vine in the
family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, known as a
peppercorn, which is usually dried and used as a spice
and seasoning in most cuisines around the globe,
making it the world's most traded spice.
BLACK PEPPER

10. Yam is the common name for several plant species in the
genus Dioscorea that form edible tubers.
The name "yam" appears to derive from Portuguese inhame,
which derived from west African languages during the trade
periods.
Several of these species have Asian origin but some others are
from Africa and America and its consumed worldwide, despite
having different ways of preparing it.
The yam crops are available all year round, which makes yam a
preferred food and a culturally important food security crop in
some sub-Saharan african countries.
YAM

11. Sugarcane, or simply cane, are several species of tall perennial
grasses of the genus Saccharum, native to the warm temperate to
tropical regions of aouth Asia, aoutheast Asia and New Guinea
which are used for sugar production since its fibrous stalks are rich
in sucrose.
Sucrose, extracted and purified in specialized mill factories, is used
as raw material in the food industry and can be also fermented to
produce ethanol.
In the 18th century, sugarcane plantations began in Caribbean,
South American, Indian Ocean and Pacific islands and the need for
laborers became a major driver of large human migrations, in the
form of slavery.
SUGAR

12. The potato is a stalk of the plant Solanum tuberosum.
In many contexts, the word ”potato” refers to the
edible starchy tuber portion of the plant, but it can also refer to
the plant itself, which is native to the Americas.
Potatoes were introduced to Europe in the second half of the
16th century.
Following millenniums of selective breeding, there are now
over 1,000 different types of potatoes around the globe and
they are an essential crop in Europe, where the production
per capita is the highest in the world.
POTATO

13. Maize (Zea mays), also known as corn, is a cereal
grain first domesticated by indigenous people in
southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago.
The plant was introduced in Portugal in 1520 and spread
by the Portuguese in different places of Africa and also
in China during the 16th century.
Nowadays it is prepared and cooked in different ways,
ranging from popcorn to corn flakes, but also bread and
corn oil, among others.
MAIZE / CORN

14. TOMATO
The tomato is the berry, often red, of the plant Solanum
lycopersicum, commonly known as a tomato plant.
The species originated in southwestern America and central
America. The Nahuatl (Aztec language) word tomatl gave rise
to the Spanish word tomate, from which the English
word tomato derived.
The tomato is consumed in either raw or cooked, in a big
variety of dishes, sauces, salads and drinks.

15. BANANA
The banana is an edible fruit – botanically, a berry –
produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering
plants in the genus Musa. The fruit is variable in size,
colour, and firmness and grow in clusters hanging from the
top of the plant.
Farmers in southeast Asia and Papua New Guinea were
the first to domesticate bananas.
The banana tree was firstly introduced to the American
continent by Portuguese sailors who brought the fruits
from west Africa sometime in the 16th century.

16. CACAO
Theobroma cacao, also called the cacao tree or cocoa tree,
is a small evergreen tree in the family Malvaceae, native to
the deep tropical regions of the Americas.
Its seeds, the cocoa beans, are used to make chocolate
liquor, cocoa solids, cocoa butter and chocolate.
The cacao plant was taken from Brazil to São Tomé and
Príncipe, a former Portuguese colony in western equatorial
coast of central Africa for the first time around 1822, which
became the largest producer of cocoa in the beginning of
the 20th century.

17. COFFEE
Coffea is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae, its
species are shrubs or small trees native to tropical and
southern Africa and tropical Asia.
The seeds of some species, called coffee beans, are used to
flavour various beverages and products.
The coffee plant was discovered in Ethiopia, migrated to the
Caribbean and, in around 1727, the King of Portugal managed
to get enough seeds and shoots to start the coffee industry in
Brazil – which is up to the present day the leading country on
coffee exportation.

18. The oldest botanical garden in Portugal (and the 15th oldest in Europe)
opened in 1768 as the Royal Botanical Garden, close to the King’s
residence in Ajuda, Lisbon.
It was created to act both as a museum and nursery for botanical
species collected from all over the world by the Portuguese explorers,
while making it a place for leisure and relaxation. There, plants are
arranged by phyto-geographical region: Brazil and South America,
Australia and New Zealand, Macronesia, Central and Atlantic Europe,
China and Japan, North and Central America, the Mediterranean
Region and Africa – reflecting the history of their introduction into
Portugal and their connection with the Age of Discovery.
Other Portuguese botanical gardens are found in central Lisbon, in
Coimbra, in Oporto and in the Madeira island.
BOTANICAL GARDENS IN PORTUGAL

19. A TYPICAL PORTUGUESE MEAL
• Sardinhas na broa com tomate
Sardines on corn bread with tomato
• Arroz doce com canela
Sweet rice with cinnamon
• Café
Coffee
In this meal, except for the sardines, which are coming
coming directly from the Atlantic Ocean, all the other
ingredients are originally from different parts of the
world, thanks to the foreign plant species globalization
started centuries ago.