Keeper of the Royal Botanical Gardens and the foremost naturalist of his era, Buffon deemed European birds superior to their American counterparts.

FORBES: Birds Of America... Untamed? J.J. Audubon's Original Watercolors Alight At The New-York Historical Society

The teacher was dubious, but he took a sample branch, sent it to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, in London, where it was identified.

NPR: The Little Coffee Plant that Wouldn't Die

As the group walked back to camp, Aaron Davis, a taxonomist at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, England, saw a small coffee plant unlike the others.

WSJ: The Indiana Jones of Coffee