French Paleobotanist
1801-1876

Adolphe Brongniart is considered to be the founder of French paleobotany (the study of fossil plants), but his influence and that of his family extends far beyond the borders of France. Born 1801 in Sèvres, France, where his father ran a porcelain factory, Adolphe came from a very well-known family. His grandfather, Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, was a respected architect who designed the Bourse (the Paris Stock Exchange); his father, Alexandre Brongniart (1770-1847), and Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) are considered the fathers of stratigraphic geology. They developed geologic mapping on a scale that could be both interpretive and predictive, and were pioneers in using fossils to determine the age of rocks.

Adolphe greatly benefited from his father's wide-ranging interests. Before he was twenty, they had traveled together to many areas of the continent, including western France, the Jura Mountains, Switzerland, and Italy. In 1824 and 1825 they...