Augustin Pyramis De Candolle     (1778 - 1841)




Photo of Omphalotus olearius by John Denk
Omphalotus olearius

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Biography
Sources
Selected publications
Species
Genera

Biography

Another medical man, De Candolle took a position at Montpellier (1808-1816) when he failed in several attempts to get into the Academy of Sciences (this would have involved a small income and facilities for doing research) in Paris. Of course, as soon as he went South, the Parisians wanted him back and offered him membership, but this would have required him to return from Montpellier, and he decided not to do so. He seems to have had a great time in Montpellier: he was a big fish in a small pond, they paid him lots of money, and everyone fussed over him and was nice to him. Unfortunately, the fall of Napoleon put him at the mercy of popular anti-Protestant sentiment and he fled (safely in advance) to Geneva, where his immediate family was from. There,

he founded the Museum of Natural History at Geneva, renovated the botanical garden, and established the Conservatoire Botanique, which presently includes the world's largest herbarium (approximately 5 million specimens). Isley


Gray has a quite lengthy bio of De Candolle; it includes multi-page extracts from De Candolle's memoirs, and I imagine that this is the only portion of them that have been translated into English. They are quite colorful, telling of his interractions with other biologists like Cuvier, Lamarck, Palisot de Beauvois, Lacroix, Duméril, von Humboldt, Haller, and other less (or more, like Napoleon) famous people.


Photo of Favolus alveolaris by John Denk
Favolus alveolarisDe Candolle had his own theories, now obsolete, but his monument is his Prodromus, a huge collaborative effort ( Isley says of Lamarck that he "never wrote anything you could carry around without a push cart"; this seems to have been true of this era in France in general) that attempted to describe all the plant species on earth (Who wrote the section on fungi?). He did not live to see it completed; his place in its assembly was taken by his son after his death.
I'm not sure whether the fungal citations that bear his name come from the Prodromus or earlier works.

Sources

Dr. Asa Gray (1889) Scientific Papers of Asa Gray

Augustin Pyramis De Candolle (1862) Mémoires et Souvenirs
      (Mémoires et Souvenirs)


Duane Isley (1994) One Hundred and One Botanists


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Selected Publications

Augustin Pyramis De CandolleFlore Fran

Augustin Pyramis De CandolleProdromus Systemis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis (Systematic Guide to the Vegetable Kingdom of Nature)
Includes not only classification and description, but also ecology, phytogeography, and phylogeny.

Augustin Pyramis De CandollePhysiologie Végétale

Augustin Pyramis De CandolleOrganographie

Augustin Pyramis De Candolle (1813) Théorie Elémentaire de la botanique

Augustin Pyramis De Candolle (1825 - 1827) Mémoires sur la Famille Legumineuse (Notes on the family of Legumes)
According to Isley, the first phylogenetic treatment of this family

Augustin Pyramis De Candolle (1827) Cours de botanique

Augustin Pyramis De Candolle (1862) Mémoires et Souvenirs (Memories and Recollections)


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Species

Amanita pantherina var. pantherina (De Candolle: Fries) Secretan
Favolus alveolaris (De Candolle: Fries) Quélet
Omphalotus olearius (De Candolle: Fries) Singer
Ustilago maydis (De Candolle) Corda

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Genera

Coniophora De Candolle: Mérat
Gymnosporangium Hedwig: De Candolle
Polysaccum Despréaux & De Candolle
Polystigma De Candolle: F. F. Chevallier

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