ABSTRACT
Pachira aquatica (Bombacaceae) on priest Cristóvão de Lisboa work “História dos Animais e Árvores do Maranhão” - Many drawings, notes and other documents written by Europeans on the first centuries after Brazil discovery remain unpublished. These documents arrived in Portugal or in the “United Kingdom”, were presented to Noblemen or in academies of science and afterwards were filed or became property of second hand booksellers when they bought other family properties. Some of these documents were published, entirely or partially, many years after their writing. História dos Animais e Árvores do Maranhão, by priest Cristóvão de Lisboa, probably written between 1624 and 1627 was printed only in 1967. Frei Cristóvão was able to analyze and gather information on the nature and the inhabitants of Maranhão, whose geographic limits were much larger than at present time, while working to evangelize its people. This paper gives the botanical identification of an arboreal species (Pachira aquatica Aubl., called ibomguiva, ibonguiaba), described and drawn on his work, and points out the painting originality of and the acuity of the description and comments made by the priest. The sound interpretation and transcription of the species name, as well as the description of seeds preparation as food, gives a glance of the knowledge about nature the indigenous people had before the arrival of European culture.