Bernard de Jussieu (17 August 1699 - 6 November 1777) was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
naturalist, younger brother of
Antoine de JussieuAntoine de Jussieu was a French naturalist.Jussieu was born in Lyon, the son of Christophe de Jussieu , an apothecary of some repute, who published a Nouveau traité de la theriaque . Antoine studied at the university of Montpellier, and travelled with his brother Bernard through Spain, Portugal...
.
Bernard de Jussieu was born in
Lyon||-||}Lyon , often Anglicized as Lyons, is a city in east-central France in the region Rhône-Alpes, situated between Paris and Marseille. Its name is pronounced in French and Arpitan, and or in English...
. He took a
medicalMedicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
degree at
MontpellierMontpellier is a city in southern France. It is the capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, as well as the Hérault department.-Population:...
and began practice in 1720, but finding the work uncongenial he gladly accepted his brother's invitation to
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1722, when he succeeded
Sebastien VaillantSébastien Vaillant was a French botanist.Vaillant was born at Vigny, Val d'Oise. He studied medicine at Pontoise, and then moved to Paris to practice as a surgeon, where he studied botany at the Jardin des Plantes under Joseph Pitton de Tournefort.Vaillant was appointed to the staff of the Jardin...
(1669-1722) as sub-demonstrator of plants in the
Jardin des PlantesThe Jardin des Plantes is the main botanical garden in France. It is one of seven departments of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle...
. In 1725 he brought out a new edition of
Joseph Pitton de TournefortJoseph Pitton de Tournefort was a French botanist, notable as the first to make a clear definition of the concept of genus for plants.-Biography:...
's
Histoire des plantes qui naissent aux environs de Paris, 2 vols., which was afterwards translated into English by
John MartynJohn Martyn or Joannis Martyn was an English botanist.Martyn's is best known for his Historia Plantarum Rariorum , and his translation, with valuable agricultural and botanical notes, of the Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil...
, the original work being incomplete.
Bernard de Jussieu (17 August 1699 - 6 November 1777) was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
naturalist, younger brother of
Antoine de JussieuAntoine de Jussieu was a French naturalist.Jussieu was born in Lyon, the son of Christophe de Jussieu , an apothecary of some repute, who published a Nouveau traité de la theriaque . Antoine studied at the university of Montpellier, and travelled with his brother Bernard through Spain, Portugal...
.
Bernard de Jussieu was born in
Lyon||-||}Lyon , often Anglicized as Lyons, is a city in east-central France in the region Rhône-Alpes, situated between Paris and Marseille. Its name is pronounced in French and Arpitan, and or in English...
. He took a
medicalMedicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
degree at
MontpellierMontpellier is a city in southern France. It is the capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, as well as the Hérault department.-Population:...
and began practice in 1720, but finding the work uncongenial he gladly accepted his brother's invitation to
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1722, when he succeeded
Sebastien VaillantSébastien Vaillant was a French botanist.Vaillant was born at Vigny, Val d'Oise. He studied medicine at Pontoise, and then moved to Paris to practice as a surgeon, where he studied botany at the Jardin des Plantes under Joseph Pitton de Tournefort.Vaillant was appointed to the staff of the Jardin...
(1669-1722) as sub-demonstrator of plants in the
Jardin des PlantesThe Jardin des Plantes is the main botanical garden in France. It is one of seven departments of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle...
. In 1725 he brought out a new edition of
Joseph Pitton de TournefortJoseph Pitton de Tournefort was a French botanist, notable as the first to make a clear definition of the concept of genus for plants.-Biography:...
's
Histoire des plantes qui naissent aux environs de Paris, 2 vols., which was afterwards translated into English by
John MartynJohn Martyn or Joannis Martyn was an English botanist.Martyn's is best known for his Historia Plantarum Rariorum , and his translation, with valuable agricultural and botanical notes, of the Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil...
, the original work being incomplete. In the same year he was admitted into the
French Academy of SciencesThe French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...
, and communicated several papers to that body.
Long before
Abraham TrembleyAbraham Trembley was a Swiss naturalist. He is best known for being the first to study freshwater polyps or hydra and for being among the first to develop experimental zoology...
(1700-1784) published his
Histoire des polypes d'eau douce, Jussieu maintained the doctrine that these organisms were animals, and not the flowers of marine plants, then the current notion; and to confirm his views he made three journeys to the coast of
NormandyNormandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is situated along the English Channel coast of Northern France between Brittany and Picardy and comprises territory in northern France and the Channel Islands.Normandy is divided between French and British...
. Singularly modest and retiring, he published very little, but in 1759 he arranged the plants in the royal garden of the Trianon at
VersaillesVersailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial center...
, according to his own scheme of classification. This arrangement is printed in his nephew
Antoine Laurent de JussieuAntoine Laurent de Jussieu was a French botanist, notable as the first to propose a natural classification of flowering plants; much of his system remains in use today....
's
Genera plantarum, and formed the basis of that work. He cared little for the credit of enunciating new discoveries, so long as the facts were made public. On the death of his brother Antoine, he could not be induced to succeed him as professor of botany at the
Jardin des PlantesThe Jardin des Plantes is the main botanical garden in France. It is one of seven departments of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle...
, but prevailed upon L. G. Lemonnier to assume the higher position.
He was elected a foreign member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of SciencesThe Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademin is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2 June...
in 1749.
The standard
botanical author abbreviation B.Juss. is applied to plants described by de Jussieu.