Abstract
AS announced in our issue of November 8, 1894, the doyen of French botanists died on the 5th of that month, “having passed away without suffering, at the advanced age of eighty-three.” Pierre Duchartre was pre-eminently a practical botanist, whose teachings were largely based upon actual knowledge, acquired by observation and experiment. Almost before the foundation of the present German school of botanists, of whom Sachs was one of the earliest exponents, Duchartre published (1867) the first edition of his well-known and highly esteemed “Éléments de Botanique.” It was the result of thirty years' study and investigation; his first paper having appeared as early as 1836. It is true that Sachs's “Handbuch der Experimental Physiologie der Pflanzen” preceded it by one year; but for some years Duchartre's book held its own, not only in France but also in this country. As we learn from a sketch of his life by Mr. Gaston Bonnier,1 Duchartre commenced his botanical studies under exceptionally difficult conditions, even for that period; but by great industry and perseverance he soon gained for himself a name and position which he maintained till the last. In 1843 he took up his abode in Paris, where he spent the last fifty years of his life, engaged in teaching, writing, and original research. In 1861 he replaced Payer at the Académie des Sciences, and succeeded him in the Botanical chair at the Sorbonne. For many years Duchartre was one of the principal supporters of the Société Nationale d'Horticulture, and he was seven times elected President of the Société Botanique de France, of which he was one of the founders. He was also President of the Société Nationale d'Agriculture, and the Académie des Sciences. Physiology and organology, including teratology, were his principal branches of study; but his very numerous contributions to botanical and horticultural literature cover a much wider field. Systematic botany, however, received comparatively little attention from him; a monograph of the Aristolochiaceae being his chief work in this direction. His last work was a summary, from the German, of Engler's additions to Hehn's book on the native countries of cultivated plants. It appeared in the Journal of the French Horticultural Society a month before his death.
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H. Pierre Duchartre. Nature 51, 344 (1895). https://doi.org/10.1038/051344a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/051344a0