Théorie Élémentaire de la Botanique

Introduction

Théorie Élémentaire de la Botanique is a book written by Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, which was first published in 1813 and later re-issued in 1819 with a new edition. This book contributed to the study of botany in the following years by introducing the use of the term taxonomy and a new classification system for grouping plants together. This book placed emphasis on the study of evolutionary relationships in grouping plants together, rather than on the shared morphological characteristics.

Context

Prior to the publication of Théorie Élémentaire de la Botanique, Augustin Pyramus de Candolle had an established career as a botanist. Upon the recommendation of Renè Loiche Desfontaines, de Candolle began work at Charles Louis L’Hèritier de Brutelle’s herbarium in the summer of 1798. After establishing his first discovered genus, Senebiera, in 1799, de Candolle published his first books, Plantarum Historia Succulentarum in 1799 and Astragalogia in 1802. In 1805, Jean-Baptiste Lamark put de Candolle in charge of the publication of the third edition of Lamark’s Flore Française and writing the introduction of Principes Élémentaire de Botanique. In this introduction, de Candolle proposed a discrete model of classifying plant taxa that was opposed to the linear model of Carl Linneaus.

After being appointed as a professor of botany at the University of Montpellier in 1807 and becoming the first chair of botany in the medical faculty of a professor, de Candolle published the book Théorie Élémentaire de la Botanique in 1813, which was later reissued in 1819. In this book, de Candolle introduced the term taxonomy and proposed a new system of classification. In the original edition, this classification system delineated 161 natural orders of plants based on whether vascular structures were present or absent. This number was increased to 213 in the last revision completed by de Candolle’s son, Alphonse de Candolle, in 1844.