Antoine Laurent de Jussieu
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Portrait of Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu |
Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (
April 12,
1748 -
September 17,
1836) was a
French botanist.
In his study of flowering plants,
Genera plantarum (1789), Jussieu classified many of the
families used today. Prior to him,
Linnaeus classified plants into families based on the number of stamens and pistils. This put a lot of unrelated plants together and split some related ones apart. Jussieu classified plants based on a natural system.
Jussieu was born in
Lyon, the nephew of the botanist
Bernard de Jussieu. He went to
Paris to study
medicine, graduating in 1770. He was professor of botany at the
Jardin des Plantes from
1770 to
1826. His son
Adrien-Henri also became a botanist.
*
Genera Plantarum, secundum ordines naturales disposita juxta methodum in Horto Regio Parisiensi exaratam, anno 1774. MS. notes. Parisiis, 1789.
