Michel Adanson (1727 - 1806)
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Biography
Sources
Selected publications
Genera
Biography
Adanson, unfortunately way ahead of his time, was the first to propose what we would now call a "natural" classification of flowering plants. His Adanson (1763) Familles des plantes challenged Linnaeus' essentialist system (based on flower morphology), proposing instead a system that took many features of the plant into account, including its biology. He lost the battle: he was ignored in his time because he refused to use the new binomial nomenclature; but he won the war when de Jussieu's similar system replaced Linnaeus' towards the close of the century.
Sources
Duane Isley (1994) One Hundred and One Botanists
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Selected Publications
Michel Adanson (1757) Histoire naturelle du Sénégal; coquillages. Avec la relation abrégée d'un voyage fait en ce pays, pendant les années 1749, 50, 51, 52 & 53 (Natural history of Senegal: bivalves. With the narration of a voyage there from 1749-1753)This is the ground-breaking work (a classification of molluscs) where Adanson realized that Linnaeus' simplistic method of classification didn't work for Adanson's tropical organisms.
Michel Adanson (1759) A voyage to Senegal, the isle of Goree, and the river Gambia. By M. Adanson, ... Translated from the French. With notes by an English gentleman, who resided some time in that country
Michel Adanson (1763) Familles des plantes (The families of plants)There is a 1966 reprint available, with an introduction by Stafleu
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Genera
Cantharellus (Adanson) Fries
Graphis Adanson
Lycogala Micheli: Adanson
Usnea P. Browne: Adanson
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