The Polish Jesuit missionary Michael Boym (1612–1659) wrote some of the earliest European studies on China’s natural history. His seminal work, Flora Sinensis (Vienna, 1656), is not merely a botanical catalogue but a complex representation of China as a land of unparalleled fertility. While Boym’s text promotes Chinese cultivation techniques and exotic flora, its hand-coloured print images particularly emphasize plants from the southern, tropical regions of China.

This lecture argues that these tropical zones functioned in the European imagination as a kind of pseudo-greenhouse—a naturally abundant space where desirable fruits and spices flourished without need for intervention. Through an analysis of Flora Sinensis, I demonstrate how Boym’s project was shaped less by a strict scientific survey of native botany and more by a logic of availability and fascination. His work represents a moment where empirical observation merged with the economic and cultural desire for the exotic. Consequently, this study proposes a shift in how we read early modern botanical books: rather than categorizing them by their native origin, we should examine them as records of cross-cultural encounters, where visual representation was dictated by what was accessible, remarkable, and valuable to the observer. In Boym’s case, the “science” of flora is inseparable from the allure of the tropical.

卜彌格（1612-1659）(Michał Piotr Boym)，天主教波蘭籍傳教士。撰寫了歐洲最早一批研究中國博物學的著作。 其里程碑式作品《中國植物志》（Flora Sinensis，維也納，1656）並非單純的植物學目錄，而是將中國塑造為一片物產豐饒、舉世無雙之地的複雜文本。卜彌格在書中推崇中國的農耕技術與異域植物。而書中手工上色的版畫圖像，尤其著重呈現中國南方熱帶地區的植物。

本講座主張認為，在歐洲人的想像中，這些熱帶區域被視作一種偽溫室 —— 一處物產豐饒、無需人工干預便能自然繁茂的豐饒空間，孕育著令人嚮往的果實與香料。通過對《中國植物志》的分析，本文指出：卜彌格的著述並非嚴格基於本土植物的科學考察，更多是受可獲取性與獵奇心理的邏輯驅動。其作品代表了一個特殊節點：實證觀察與歐洲對異域風物的經濟、文化渴望在此相互交融。

據此，本研究主張重新審視近代早期植物學典籍的解讀路徑：不應僅以植物原產地對其歸類，而應將其視為跨文化相遇的記錄 —— 圖像呈現的取捨，取決於觀察者眼中可接觸、引人注目且具價值的物件。 在卜彌格的案例中，植物 「科學」 與熱帶地域的吸引力密不可分。