Charles Plumier

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Charles Plumier

Charles Plumier (French:

Louis XIV of France
.

Biography

Born in

Minims. He devoted himself to the study of mathematics and physics, made physical instruments, and was an excellent draughtsman, painter, and turner
.

On being sent to the French monastery of Trinità dei Monti at Rome, Plumier studied botany under two members of the order, and especially under Cistercian botanist, Paolo Boccone. After his return to France, he became a pupil of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, whom he accompanied on botanical expeditions.

He also explored the coasts of

Memoires de Trévoux.[2]

In 1704, with his Traité des Fougères de l'Amérique in the press and about to start on his fourth journey, intending to visit the home of the true

Cadiz
.

At his death Plumier left 31 manuscript volumes containing notes and descriptions, and about 6,000 drawings, 4,000 of which were of plants, while the remainder reproduced American animals of nearly all classes, especially birds and fishes.

Mémoires de Trévoux. Through his observations in Martinique, Plumier proved that the cochineal
belongs to the animal kingdom and should be classed among the insects.

Accomplishments

All natural scientists of the 18th century spoke of him with admiration. Tournefort and Linnaeus named in his honour the genus Plumeria, which belongs to the family Apocynaceae and is indigenous in about 40 species to Central America.

  • Plumier identified and described Fuchsia, which he discovered on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean in 1696-7. He published his first description of Fuchsia (Fuchsia triphylla, flore coccineo) in 1703.
  • Charles Plumier named the plant genus "Begonia" after Michel Bégon, the governor of Haiti, as a tribute for recommending Plumier to King Louis XIV as an official plant collector.
  • French explorer and botanist Louis Feuillée was one of his pupils.
  • His first work was Description des plantes de l'Amérique (Paris, 1693); it contained 108 plates, half of which represented ferns. This was followed by Nova plantarum americanarum genera (Paris, 1703–04), with 40 plates; in this work about 100 genera, with about 700 species, were redescribed. At a later date, Linnaeus adopted in his system, almost without change, these and other newly described genera arranged by Plumier. Plumier left a work in French and Latin ready to be printed entitled Traité des fougères de l'Amérique (Paris, 1705), which contained 170 excellent plates. The publication "Filicetum Americanum" (Paris, 1703), with 222 plates, was compiled from those already mentioned. Plumier also wrote another book of an entirely different character on turning, L'Art de tourner (Lyons, 1701; Paris, 1749); this was translated into Russian by Peter the Great. The manuscript of the translation is at St. Petersburg.
The standard author abbreviation Plum. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[5]

List of selected publications

Nova plantarum americanarum genera, 1703
  • Plumier, Charles (1703). Nova plantarum americanarum genera. Parisiis: Joannem Boudot.
  • Description des plantes de l'Amérique on Botanicus.
  • Plantarum americanarum...on Botanicus.
  • Traité des fougères de l'Amérique on SICD Universities of Strasbourg
  • L'Art de Tourner en Perfection edition of 1749 digitized by Christian LAVIGNE (Ars Mathematica), from the copy in the Bibliothèque de Verdun (Meuse, France)

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Charles Plumier". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

Legacy

His collection of plant specimens deposited in Paris at the National Museum of Natural History, France was curated by Alicia Lourteig in the twentieth century.[6]

Taxon named in Plumier's honor

See also

  • List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics

References

  1. ^ Ronald H. Petersen, New World Botany: Columbus to Darwin (2001:155).
  2. ^ Petersen 2001:155.
  3. ^ Pietsch, T. W. 2001. Charles Plumier (1646–1704) and his drawings of French and American fishes. Arch. Nat. Hist., 28(1):1–57.
  4. Journal des Savants
    , May 1756:314, advertises the first installment.
  5. ^ International Plant Names Index.  Plum.
  6. ^ Sastre, C (2003). "Alicia Lourteig (1913-2003)". Adansonia. Series 3. 25 (2): 149–150.
  7. ^ Christopher Scharpf; Kenneth J. Lazara (24 July 2018). "Order GOBIIFORMES: Family OXUDERCIDAE (p-z)". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 13 August 2018.

External links

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