Pierre Villaret

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Pierre Villaret (born March 3, 1918 in Lausanne ; † August 28, 2001 ibid) was a Swiss botanist , palynologist , pteridophytologist and plant sociologist .

Life

School and study

Villaret attended school in Lausanne and graduated in 1937 with a bachelor's degree in Latin and Greek. He then studied natural sciences at the University of Lausanne and graduated in 1944 with a degree in mathematics , chemistry , physical chemistry , zoology and botany . He became Arthur Maillefer's assistant . From 1944 to 1945 he spent his academic year at the Institute for Geobotany at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich with Werner Lüdi . There he specialized in the fields of palynology and geobotany . He wrote his doctoral thesis under Arthur Maillefer on the subject of Étude floristique de la Vallée d'Anzeindaz (Floristic Studies of the Anzeindaz Valley) and received his doctorate in 1953. The thesis was published in 1056.

Profession and positions

Villaret returned to Lausanne after completing his academic year. Here he was appointed curator of the Musée et jardins botaniques cantonaux de Lausanne on April 1, 1945 (Museum and Botanical Gardens of the Canton of Vaud in Lausanne).

During this time, Villaret acquired a VW Beetle which enabled him to go on excursions into the area with other botanists . With Edouard Thommen he explored the ponds of the Dombes and the Bresse . He went on further excursions with Samuel Aubert.

Villaret was chairman of the founding assembly for the Cercle Vaudois de Botanique on January 16, 1949 and sponsor and friend of this society.

From 1954 to 1964 he gave lectures on systematic botany and pharmacy and on phytogeography at the University of Lausanne. Initially he was employed as an associate professor. In 1966 he became director of the Institute for Systematic Botany and in 1972 he was made full professor at the University of Lausanne.

Thanks to his knowledge of the Swiss flora, Villaret managed to publish the book Flore de la Suisse by Auguste Binz and Edouard Thommen despite great editorial difficulties . Issues of it appeared in 1966 and 1976. In 1993 an edition based on it was published in German under the title Taschenatlas der Schweizer Flora .

Villaret paid particular attention to the difficult areas of vascular spore plants and sedges and was able to fully check their identification keys .

In addition to his university activities, Villaret held the following offices:

  • since 1961 management of the "Thomasia" alpine garden (Jardin alpin de Pont de Nant), a botanical garden at an altitude of 1260 m with 3000 alpine plants.
  • from 1960 to 1964 chairman of the Cercle Vaudois de Botanique, from 1979 honorary member
  • 1968 founding member of the Arboretum national du vallon de l'Aubonne
  • from 1954 to 1967 Secretary of the Commission for Nature Conservation of the Canton of Vaud
  • from 1963 to 1967 Secretary of the Commission for the Protection of National Nature Reserves
  • from 1964 to 1967 Secretary to the Council of the Swiss League for Nature Conservation
  • from 1954 to 1981 member of the Swiss Geobotany Commission

In 1981, Villaret took early retirement and was appointed honorary professor at the University of Lausanne.

After Villaret had regained his health, he went on extensive botanical excursions with his partner Léa Cart. He traveled to Argentina, the USA, Hawaii, Guadeloupe, South Africa, the Canary Islands, Malaysia and Australia.

He owned a house in Jávea , where he was called Don Pedro el Botanico by the locals. He had also rented an apartment in Locarno . In both places he continued his botanical studies, especially the ferns .

family

In 1957 Villaret married the German botanist Margita von Rochow . After her marriage she called herself Margita Villaret-von Rochow. After her marriage, she moved to Villaret in Lausanne and had two children (1958 and 1960). In 1974 Margita died, leaving Villaret with her two children. For long he could not overcome the death of his wife and withdrew from all his activities. This led to his early retirement in 1981.

Works (selection)

  • Margita Villaret-von Rochow, Pierre Villaret: The pollen diagram of a forest boundary moor in the Vaudois Alps , publications of the Geobotanical Institute Rübel in Zurich, Volume 33 (1958), online
  • Pierre Villaret: L'évolution postglaciaire de la végétation en fonction de l'altiude dans la vallée d'Anzeindaz (Alpes Vaudoises) , reports of the Geobotanical Institute of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Rübel Foundation, Volume 31 (1959), online
  • Pierre Villaret: L'œuvre taxonomique et floristique d'A. Maillefer , Bulletin de la Société Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles, Volume 67 (1958-1961), online
  • Pierre Villaret: Le Polypodium vulgare L. ssp. serratum (WILLD.) CHRIST en Suisse , Bulletin de la Société Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles, Volume 67 (1958–1961), online
  • Pierre Villaret, Marcel Burri: Les découvertes palynologiques de Vidy et leur signification pour l'histoire du Lac Léman , Bulletin de la Société Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles, Volume 69 (1965–1967), online
  • Pierre Villaret: La Station , Bulletin technique de la Suisse romande, Volume 100 (1974), online

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Bulletin de la Société Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles, Volume 87 (2000–2001) online
  2. ↑ a b Vita at www.musees.vd.ch. Retrieved November 6, 2018.
  3. ↑ E. Thommen, A. Becherer: Pocket Atlas of the Swiss Flora . Birkhäuser Verlag; Edition: 7th revised. and exp. Edition 1993, ISBN 3-7643-2842-8
  4. ^ Margita von Rochow uni Göttingen. Retrieved November 5, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Villaret, Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss botanist, palynologist, pteridophytologist and plant sociologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Lausanne
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 2001
Place of death Lausanne