René Louiche Desfontaines

René Louiche Desfontaines ( born February 14, 1750 in Tremblay, † November 16, 1833 in Paris) was a French botanist. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Desf. ".

Life and work

Desfontaines was born near Tremblay in Brittany. After he attended the Collège de Rennes, in 1773 he went to Paris to study medicine. His interest in botany was awakened in the lectures of Louis Guillaume Lemonnier at the Jardin des Plantes. 1786, he was appointed as the successor of Lemonnier professor of botany at the Jardin des Plantes. Desfontaines collected on a two-year trip to Tunisia and Algeria, a large number of plants. In his Flora Atlantica Desfontaines first descriptions of about 300 species of plants brought.

Taxonomic ceremony

The plant genus Desfontainia Ruiz et Pav ( with the only native to South America Type Desfontainia spinosa) is named after him. This genus is separated within the order of gentian -like depending on the author in her own family Desfontainiaceae or added to the family of Brechnuss plants ( Loganiaceae ).

Writings

  • Flora atlantica ..., 2 volumes, 1798 to 1799
  • Tableau de l' école de botanique ..., 1804
  • Choix des plantes du Corollaire the institute de Tournefort, 1808
  • Histoire des arbres et des arbrisseaux ..., 1809
  • Voyage dans les Régences de Tunis et d' Alger, 1838
Gentianales International Plant Names Index Integrated Authority File
678213
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