A. P. de Candolle

A. P. de Candolle (February 4, 1778 - September 9, 1841) was one of the great botanists of all time. There is quite a bit of confusion about his exact name, caused in no small part by the fact that he used different spellings in the various books he authored. The spelling listed by IPNI is "Augustin Pyramus de Candolle". The author abbreviation used in citing plant names he published is "DC.". Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... February 4 is the 35th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1778 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... September 9 is the 252nd day of the year (253rd in leap years). ... 1841 is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... In botanical nomenclature, author citation refers to the person (or team) who valid published the name, i. ... A botanical name is a formal name conforming to the ICBN. As with its zoological and bacterial equivalents it may also be called a scientific name. Botanical names may be in one part (genus and above), two parts (species) or three parts (below the rank of species). ...

He was descended from one of the ancient families of the Provence, but was, born in Geneva, as religious persecution had forced his ancestors to leave their native country in the middle of the 16th century. Provence is a former Roman province and is now a region of southeastern France, located on the Mediterranean Sea adjacent to Frances border with Italy. ... Geneva (pronunciation //; French: Genève //, German: //, Italian: Ginevra) is the second most populous city in Switzerland, and is the most populous city of Romandy (the French-speaking part of Switzerland). ...

Though a weakly boy he showed great aptitude for study, and distinguished himself at school by his rapid attainments in classical and general literature, and specially by a faculty for writing elegant verse. He began his scientific studies at the college of Geneva, where the teaching of J. P. E. Vaucher first inspired him with the determination to make botanical science the chief pursuit of his life. In 1796 he moved to Paris. His first productions, Plantarum historia succulentarum (4 vols., 1799) and Astragalogia (1802), brought him to the notice of Georges Cuvier, for whom he acted as deputy at the College de France in 1802, and of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who afterwards entrusted him with the publication of the third edition of the Flore française (1803-1815). The "Principes élémentaires de botanique", printed as the introduction to this work, contained the first exposition of his principles of classification, following a natural method as opposed to the artificial, Linnaean method. Georges Cuvier Baron Georges Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier (August 23, 1769 - May 13, 1832) was a French naturalist and zoologist. ... Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck (August 1, 1744 – December 28, 1829) was a French naturalist and an early proponent of the idea that evolution occurred and proceeded in accordance with natural laws. ... Carolus Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as , (May 23, 1707 – January 10, 1778), was a Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist[1] who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of nomenclature. ...

In 1804 he was granted the degree of doctor of medicine by the medical faculty of Paris, and published his Essai sur les propriétés médicales des plantes, and soon after, in 1806, his Synopsis plantarum in flora Gallica descriptarum. At the request of the French government he spent the summers of the following six years in making a botanical and agricultural survey of the entire country, the results of which were published in 1813. In 1807 he was appointed professor of botany in the medical faculty of the university of Montpellier, to transfer in 1810 to the newly founded chair of botany in the faculty of sciences in the same university. , Location within France Montpellier (Occitan Montpelhièr) is a city in the south of France. ...

From Montpellier, where he published his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique (Elementary Theory of Botany, 1813), he moved to Geneva in 1816 and in the following year was invited by the (again independent) Swiss government to fill the newly created chair of natural history. The rest of his life was spent in an attempt to elaborate and complete his natural system of botanical classification. The results of his labours were initially published in his Regni vegetabilis systema naturale, but only two volumes were completed (1821) when he found that it would be impossible for him to complete this, at the chosen, extensive scale. Accordingly, in 1824 he began a less extensive work of the same kind, the Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis, but even of this he was able to finish only seven volumes, or two-thirds of the whole. He had been in delicate health for several years when he died at Geneva.

His son was Alphonse de Candolle (1806-1893), who eventually succeeded to his father's chair and continued the Prodromus. Alphonse Louis Pierre Pyrame de Candolle (Paris October 28, 1806 – Geneva April 4, 1893), was a French-Swiss botanist, the son of the Swiss botanist Augustin Pyrame de Candolle. ...

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Encyclopædia Britannica, the 11th edition The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is perhaps the most famous edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...

External links

• Plantarum historia succulentarum, online
• Les liliacées, online
• Biography