Philibert Commerson
Philibert Commerson (occasionally Commerçon , born November 18, 1727 in Châtillon-lès-Dombes , † March 13, 1773 in Mauritius ) was a French botanist . Its official botanical author abbreviation is “ Comm. ".
Live and act
The beginnings
Commerson was born in Châtillon les Dombes in France . He studied medicine and botany in Montpellier . Carl von Linné had commissioned him to collect and categorize fish from the Mediterranean for his museum in Stockholm . He returned to France in 1756, where he set up botanical gardens .
The circumnavigation
From 1766 to 1768 he accompanied Louis Antoine de Bougainville on his circumnavigation of the world (from 1766 to 1769). His task was to catalog newly discovered animal and plant species. He has observed and described a species of dolphin , the Commerson's dolphin , now named after him, in the Strait of Magellan .
His assistant and presumably secret lover Jeanne Baret drove disguised as a man. Together they collected around 6,000 samples, with over 70 plants only given Commerson's name. In Tahiti , Baret was exposed as a woman and then barricaded herself on the ship; in Mauritius , she and Commerson disembarked prematurely in December 1768.
Dedication names, memory
In his honor, the genus Commersonia J.R & G.Forst. from the plant family of sterculioideae (Sterculiaceae), and the genus Humbertia Lam. from the family of wind plants with the only kind Humbertia madagascariensis named.
In Commerson's birthplace, Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne (formerly Châtillon les Dombes), there is a Commerson street in memory of the son of the city, as well as an avenue in neighboring Bourg-en-Bresse that reminds of Philibert Commerson.
Web links
- Author entry and list of the described plant names for Philibert Commerson at the IPNI
Individual evidence
- ↑ deutschlandfunk.de , calendar sheet , March 22, 2017, Irene Meichsner : Jeanne Baret, who sailed around the world (March 23, 2017)
- ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names . Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin Berlin 2018. [1]
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Commerson, Philibert |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Commerçon, Philibert |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French botanist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 18, 1727 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Châtillon-lès-Dombes |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 13, 1773 |
| Place of death | in Mauritius |