Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1748 - 1836)
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Biography
Sources
Selected publications
Biography
Along with Adanson, one of the pioneers of a botanical classification system that used multiple characteristics in a holistic manner, rather than a single, essentialist character for each taxon, as in Linnaeus's system. But whereas Adanson worked before Linnaeus, and his work was quickly ignored because it didn't use the binomial system, Jussieu was more successful, and his system quickly superceded that of Linnaeus.
After getting his medical degree in 1770, de Jussieu worked at the Jardin du Roi, where three generations of his family were employed. He managed to stay out of sight during the French Revolution, and emerged as the director of the garden after it was re-named as [part of?] the Museum d'Historie Naturelle. Isley identifies de Jussieu's uncle Bernard as the person who had arranged the garden in sections according to what we now call families of plants. It is this arrangement of the garden that de Jussieu refers to in the title of his Genera plantarum.
Sources
Duane Isley (1994) One Hundred and One Botanists
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Selected Publications
Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1784) Rapport de l'un des commissaires chargés par le roi, de l'examen du magnétisme animal (Report on an assignment from the king, to examine the phenomenon of animal magnetism)
Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1789) Genera plantarum secundum ordines naturales disposita, juxta methodum in Horto regio Parisiensi exaratum anno M. DCC. LXXIV (The genera of plants arranged in natural families, according to the method used in [the king's] gardens around Paris, since the year 1774)This is his most famous and important work, in which he sets forth his classification system for the phanerogams that overthrew that of Linnaeus.
It also goes under other, even longer names, such as Antonii Laurentii de Jussieu regi a consiliia et secretis Genera plantarum secundum ordines naturales disposita, : juxta methodum in horto regio parisiensi exaratam, anno M.DCC.LXXIV. / Recudi curavit notisque auxit Paulus Usteri and
Antonii Laurentii de Jussieu genera plantarum secundum ordines naturales disposita, juxta methodum in Horto regio Parisiensi exaratum anno M. DCC LXXIV .
Do not let them confuse you.
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