Immediately following his circumnavigation on the Austrian research frigate "Novara" from 1857-1859, Josef Selleny took part in an expedition to South America accompanied by Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, which lasted from the winter of 1859 to March 1860. On this research trip, Selleny made numerous drawings, ranging from the exact depiction of the continent's coastlines to cities, scenes from the everyday life of travelers to precise pictures of the South American flora. In the Humboldt sense, Selleny captured the plants in the surrounding landscape to show, as on this sheet, the constellation in which the exotic plants grow together. The lush vegetation shown here with cacti.