André Thouin

André Thouin ( born February 10, 1747 in Paris, † October 27th 1824 in Paris ) was a French botanist. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Thouin ".

Life and work

Family

He was the son of Jean -André Thouin (? -1764 ), The " Jardinier du Cabinet du Roi " ( senior gardener of " Royal Garden ", the predecessor of the botanical garden Jardin des Plantes ) in Paris was. The eminent landscape artist Gabriel Thouin was his younger brother.

Training

In Jussieu Bernard de (1699-1777), the most renowned botanist of his time and founder of the first natural system of plant classification, André Thouin learned botany.

Senior gardener of the Royal Cabinet

As Thouins father died, André was 17 years old. The naturalist Georges- Louis Leclerc de Buffon offered to the inquisitive and highly talented Thouin to continue his father's place as head of the Botanical Garden ( " Jardinier en Chef du Cabinet Royal d' Histoire Naturelle" ). Under Thouins management of the garden has been significantly expanded.

Scientific Activities

Thouin worked with in the wake of the famous Encyclopédie of Diderot and d' Alembert and entered 1786 in the French Academy of Sciences (after resolution of the academies during the French Revolution to the Institut de France ). Together with Pierre Marie Auguste Broussonet (1761-1807), Louis Jean -Marie Daubenton, Pierre Joseph Redouté, René Louiche Desfontaines, Antoine François de Fourcroy and Antoine Laurent Lavoisier in 1787 he was one of the founders of the Paris Linnean Society. In several other scientific societies he was a member.

Career and activities in the young republic

Thouin, one of the last gardener of the king, was soon one of the leading gardeners of the new republic:

He took an active part in the breakaway French Revolution and occupied various posts in the administration. So he sat, for example, in the city of Paris meeting on the side of Mirabeau, Sieyès, Talleyrand, and Danton and was from 1789 to 1800 " Commissaire de la République ".

Together with Fabre d' Églantine he drew up the Republican calendar. On October 25, 1793 ( 4 Brumaire of the year 1 ), the National Convention decided the calendar year in which the sequence was determined by plants, fruits and flowers. However, the metric system, the calendar was could not prevail in Europe and in the long run also in France, although such a classification in many other areas applies.

With René Louiche Desfontaines (1750-1831) inventoried Thouin in the region of Paris, now dispossessed botanical gardens of the aristocracy and other former dignitaries. In 1793 he was (Agriculture, Horticulture and Forestry ) brought to the chair of Professor of Culture of the newly founded National Museum of Natural History. He held until his death in 1824 this position. From 1814 to 1817 he was director of the museum. In 1794 ( until early 1795), he followed the revolutionary armies in the Netherlands and Belgium, where he was commissioned together with the geologist Barthélemy Faujas de Saint- Fond ( 1741-1819 ), systematically expropriated by the aristocrats whose plant collections for the Museum " back to gain. " He received the same job in 1796 when the Italian campaign of Napoleon Bonaparte. He traveled in 1795 and 1796 for this purpose, among others, to Mantua, Padua, Parma and Florence. Also in the French overseas colonies selected plants were brought to Paris from Thouin. Thouin, were by his close contacts from the time of the monarchy with contemporary colleagues in botanical gardens in other countries, the most interesting collections of course well known. He was also quite clear that without a transfer of valuable plant populations of these plants would be lost already due to lack of maintenance by the previous gardener of the nobles, as well as destructive to the care of the Botanical Gardens at the Paris Museum. The activities carried out by Thouin botanical collections for the museum are also the only botanical scientific inventory of France, which was not destroyed by the revolutionary turmoil in fact. Without his work the Royal Gardens and its many plants collected by hunters of the king plants and herbaria would have been destroyed in the revolutionary turmoil and not get as the famous Jardin des Plantes.

Immediately Thouin began to issue from there back to the plant gradually emerging in the country Botanical Gardens. Each department should follow the will of the new government, a botanical center to chat with a double task, educationally and economically. In particular crops should - because of the prevailing famine, but also because of the deliberate appreciation of the peasantry - fulfill these functions. The estimated in the monarchy ornamental plants were initially in the background, but obtained under Napoleon, and in particular its flowers enthusiastic wife Joséphine reasserting. A large number of known plants, including the Dahlia, Thouin has introduced at this time in France and acclimatized at the museum. Likewise Thouin exchanged with other botanists worldwide plants or seeds from, eg several times with Thomas Jefferson, the enlightened American politicians and scientists.

Importance for German landscape artist

The founder of the classical landscape garden in Germany, Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell, came during his studies in France in contact with Thouin. After his return Sckell led from 1781 to 1812 a correspondence with Thouin, concerning the completion of the collections at the Botanical Garden in Munich, was involved in the Sckell. ( The letters are transcribed reproduced at: Iris Lauterbach ( Eds.): Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell ( 1750-1823 ) landscape artist and urban planner Worms:. Wernersche Publishing Company, 2002). The young Prussian garden architect Peter Joseph Lenne acquired during his stay in France 1811/12 in addition to his contacts with Gabriel Thouin, who influenced him greatly, with André Thouin the recessed plant knowledge about rare shrubs and exotic plants, which he began in his gardens.

Forestry Scientific Importance

Of particular importance is André Thouins work in the field of forestry. He sat here for example for improving the methods of cultivation by seed selection and better techniques of wood finishing one, also explored the effects of light on plants.

Honors

André Thouin was awarded the highest French medal, Knight of the Legion of Honour. The Cape Thouin on the north coast of Western Australia (40 km west of Port Hedland ), and, since October 2, 1865, a street in the 5th arrondissement of Paris are named after him. The genus Thouinia from the family of Soapberry was dedicated to him. This from tropical Africa ( Thouinia dicarpa ), Mexico ( Thouinia descandra ) and Cuba ( Thouinia canescens ) derived plants keep his name in the herbaria and botanical gardens throughout the world.

Writings

(Selection)

• Description de l' École d'agriculture pratique du Muséum d' histoire naturelle (1814 )
• Manuel d' arboriculture. Illustré Manuel de la culture, de la taille et de la greffe des arbres fruitiers
• Monograph of greffes, ou Description of the technique diverses sortes de greffes employées pour la multiplication of végétaux (1821 )
• Cours de culture et de naturalization of végétaux (1827 )
• Mémoire sur la culture et sur ​​leur usage of dahlias dans l' ornement des jardins (1804 )
• Publisher of Instruction pour les voyageurs et pour les employés dans les colonies sur la manière de recueillir, de conserver les objets et d' envoyer d' histoire naturelle, rédigée ... par l' administration du Muséum d' histoire naturelle royal (one of the management Museum of Natural History written instructions for travelers and employees in the colonies on the collecting and sending of natural history objects )
• In a written shortly before his death foreword for the 1825 published treatise Traité des arbrisseaux et des arbustes cultivés en France et en pleine terre by Jean -Henri Jaume Saint- Hilaire ( 1772-1845 ) Thouin stresses the need for the preservation of trees and plantings for the over-exploited by rapid population growth forests of France.