Dominique Villars
Dominique Villars (born November 14, 1745 in Villar, † June 26, 1814 in Strasbourg ) was a French doctor and botanist . Its official botanical author abbreviation is “ Vill. "
Live and act
His father, a clerk for a nobleman, taught him to read and write. His first interest in botany was taking care of the cattle the family owned .
His father died and his mother sent him to Gap , about 15 kilometers south , where he was supposed to train with the public prosecutor. There he had access to various medical textbooks, for example by Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1501–1577) or Loys Guyons († 1630) Miroir de la beauté et de la santé corporelle ("Mirror of physical beauty and health").
When he was 16, his mother arranged to marry a wealthy, orphaned girl from the neighboring village. The marriage had five children.
In 1766 he met the abbot Dominique Chaix (1730–1799), who inspired him again for botany and introduced him to the work of Carl von Linné . At the end of the 1960s, Villars decided to study medicine in Grenoble . There he impressed a senior provincial official, Pajot de Marcheval, who awarded the student a scholarship.
In addition to his studies, he collected plants and set up a herbarium . In the years 1775 and 1776 he was each participant in a geological research trip through the Dauphiné , which was led by Étienne Guettard (1715–1786); among others, Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond (1741-1819) also took part. It was also Guettard who made it possible for Villard to go to Paris in 1777 , where he had the opportunity to meet famous scientists of the time or their writings, such as the botanists Bernard de Jussieu (1699–1777), Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1748– 1836), Edmé-Louis Daubenton (1732–1786), Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656–1708), Sébastien Vaillant (1669–1722) and André Thouin (1746–1824), but also medical professionals such as Antoine Portal (1742–1832) or Félix Vicq d'Azir (1748–1794).
He received his doctorate in 1778 in Valence . Pajot de Marcheval offered him a position as director of the botanical garden in Grenoble as well as a teaching position at the local hospital, which meant that Villars was financially secure.
Villars divided his time between his two areas of interest: he collected and examined plants from the area, but also worked as a doctor. For example, he treated Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, the future king of Sweden and Norway - who tried in vain to employ Villars as his personal physician.
His main work, the Histoire des plantes du Dauphiné , appeared from 1786 to 1789. It contains over 2,700 descriptions of plant species, most of them based on more than twenty excursions.
With the French Revolution he lost all offices in Grenoble. He wanted to move to Gap, but first received an offer from the Medical Faculty of the University of Strasbourg to take up a professorship in botany there. In 1796 he became a member of the Académie des Sciences . From 1805 he taught in Strasbourg, where he also became dean of the university.
His herbarium and botanical records are kept in the Museum of Grenoble. We owe Villars numerous descriptions of plants native to the Alps.
Taxonomic honor
The genus Villarsia Vent was named in his honor . Named from the plant family of the feverish clover family (Menyanthaceae).
Works (selection)
- Histoire des plantes du Dauphiné . 1786-1789
- Prospectus de l'histoire des plantes de Dauphiné . 1779
- Catalog méthodique des plantes du jardin de Strasbourg . 1807
literature
- Benoît Dayrat: Les Botanistes et la Flore de France. Trois siècles de découvertes . Publications scientifiques du Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris 2003. ISBN 2-85653-548-8
Individual evidence
- ^ List of former members since 1666: Letter V. Académie des sciences, accessed on March 12, 2020 (French).
- ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .
- ↑ Walter Erhardt among others: The great pikeperch. Encyclopedia of Plant Names . Volume 2, page 2074. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2008. ISBN 978-3-8001-5406-7
Web links
- Author entry and list of the described plant names for Dominique Villars at the IPNI
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Villars, Dominique |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French doctor and botanist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 14, 1745 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Villar |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 26, 1814 |
| Place of death | Strasbourg |