1748-1836

French Physician and Botanist

Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu was an important influential botanist in France at the time of the French Revolution. He developed the principles that served as the basis for a system of classifying plants for over two centuries (in fact, it was only in 1999 that a major revision to this system was proposed), and he helped to completely reorganize the Natural History Museum during his tenure there.

Jussieu was born into a family of botanists. Three of his uncles, Antoine, Bernard, and Joseph, were respected botanists in pre-Revolutionary France, and his son, Adrien-Henri, followed the family tradition in the first half of the nineteenth century. At the age of 17, he traveled to Paris to live with his uncle Bernard while studying medicine. However, he was appointed a professor and demonstrator at the Jardins du Roi (the Royal Gardens) in 1770 and, thereafter...