Editorial

Abstract

The Rodriguésia is the journal of the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden Research Institute (JBRJ) since 1935, year of its creation, being named after one of the most influential botanists in Brazil, João Barbosa Rodrigues. It publishes scientific results, institutional activities and aspects of the life and work of scientists who are important to the field of botany.Taking this into account, in 1942, the journal dedicated a volume to the memory of the 100 years of the birth of João Barbosa Rodrigues. In this volume it can be found articles by Alpheu Domingues, Wanderbilt Duarte, Othon Machado, all referencing the importance of the botanist.João Barbosa Rodrigues was a scholar of several subjects, director in several institutions, and participated in a varied network of sociability. It is noticeable the plurality of interests that João Barbosa Rodrigues demonstrated in works and actions from the second half of the 19 th century to the beginning of the 20th century. Such plurality of interests manifested by Rodrigues challenged us to propose a dossier concerning different perspectives on the work and life of the botanist.The proposal to bring to the public the botanist João Barbosa Rodrigues, 180 years after his birth, is an excellent pretext to get important themes to the country in this historical moment in which the place of science in people's daily life is being discussed by the society and research institutions, among others.The articles published in the present dossier allow the reader to have contact with different dimensions of the botanist's work, ranging from different themes, methodologies and differentiated approaches. And more than that, it invites the readers to a reflection on what Barbosa Rodrigues wrote and how the historiography updates and reinforces certain explanations about his performance. Some of the papers presented here argue the exceptional dimension of the botanist and others seek to distance themselves from the histories of achievements and laudatory biographies still present in our literature in the wake of the