Michel Adanson , born the April 7th 1727 with Aix-en-Provence and dead the August 3rd 1806 with Paris, is a Botaniste French of Scottish origin . He is the brother of Jean-Baptiste Adanson, (1732-1803), Drogman and chancellor of France in Orient.

Biography

First years

Michel Adanson is of Scottish origin by his paternal grandfather Jacques Adanson who belonged to these Scottish families which had followed the king of England Jacques II détrôné by his son-in-law in 1688 and constrained to take refuge in France. His/her father, Leger Adanson, native of the place of Villejacques in Auvergne, and husband of From Aix, Marthe Bush, was rider of Mr. de Vintimille, archbishop of Aix-en-Provence. Leger Adanson had six children: Clement, Charles godson of the archbishop, Louis-Joseph, Anne, Michel and Jean-Baptiste.

Mr. de Vintimille having been named with the episcopal see of Paris, the Adanson family followed it in the capital where the Michel young person was one of the most brilliant pupils of the Collège Holy-Bores. The large observer Needham, naturalist famous for his microscopic discoveries, having noticed it, made him gift of a Microscope, while saying to him: Since you learned how so well to know the works of the men, you must now study those of nature.

Adanson and the natural science

Impassioned by the Natural science, Adanson follows the courses of Rene-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1683-1757) and Bernard de Jussieu (1699-1777) to the national Muséum of natural history. He wanted to travel in regions which had not been visited yet and decided for Senegal, thinking that the climate of this country would be opposed a long time in the searches of any other naturalist.

In 1748, it thus undertakes, with its expenses, a voyage to the Senegal (from December 20th, 1748 to February 18th 1754), Bernard de Jussieu having obtained a station, very modest to him, of clerk to the Compagnie of the Indies. In the crossing, he visited the Azores and the Canaries. Arrived at Senegal, it described a considerable number of animals and new plants, but made also many geographical, ethnographic observations. It sent Africa to Réaumur the zoological minerals and collections which it collected; with the astronomer Pierre Charles Monnier his astronomical observations and weather, and in Bernard de Jussieu his botanical collections, classified according to a natural method.

Five years later, it returned from there bringing with him of immense collections of natural history including more than thirty thousand plants (preserved today at the Natural history museum of Natural history). It also brought back 33 S of Oiseau X which is described by Mathurin Jacques Brisson (1723-1806) in his book Ornithologie or method containing division of the birds in orders, sections, kinds, species and their varieties. It published the report of its voyage in 1757 under the title: Natural history of Senegal . This work was digitized by the National library.

It also made appear a remarkable memory on the baobab tree (made famous for Saint-Exupéry in the Small Prince ), plant in which it made known the progressive increase. It described already this tree in its book on Senegal (p. 54): “A tree whose extraordinary size drew my attention. It was a calebassier called bread of the monkeys… ”. One was to give, in his honor, the scientific name of Adansonia to the baobab tree. This memory was digitized by the Academy. It also composed a report on the trees which produce gum of Arabia, one of the principal objects commercial of Senegal at that time.

But these printed works are little of things compared to extraordinary mass of manuscripts left by Adanson. However the notoriety of its writings enabled him to return in 1759, with the Academy of Science to replace Auguste Denis Fougeroux de Bondaroy (1732-1789) and it was named royal critic. It could publish in 1763 its entitled book Familles of the Plants proposing a new classification as well as a new nomenclature. He becomes member of the Royal Society in 1761. He conceived the intention carrying out a “Universal Encyclopedia” embracing all sciences of nature and the plan subjected some on February 15th, 1775 to the Academy. But, according to the report/ratio of the police chiefs of March 4th, 1775, the Academy did not retain it. It is while seeking to order its botanical collections and under the influence of Jussieu that it worked out a method of classification known as natural. It rejected the systems which it considered artificial John Ray (1627-1705), of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708) and of Carl von Linné (1707-1778).

End-of-life

Impoverished by its voyage to Senegal, functions and the pensions which it had in France would have sufficed for its needs for scientist, but it preserved the idea to carry out with him only a complete Encyclopédie to which it devoted all his means to accelerate the execution of it. Louis XVI granted to him the use of the royal Imprimerie for 27 volumes which were to form this work whose title would have been " Universal order of nature ". In addition to these volumes of text, there was to be several volumes in folio of boards. But the Révolution arrived and its financial means was removed to him. The loss to which it was most sensitive was that of the garden where for several years it had followed important experiments on the plants and in particular on the mulberry trees.

In spite of its pecuniary difficulties, he refused quoted by the emperor of Austria, the empress Catherine II and by the king of Spain to be established in their State.

The reality of its deep misery was revealed only at the time of the creation of the Institute, in 1798. Invited to come to take seat among the members of the Academy of Science, he answered that it missed shoes to go there. The Benezech minister made him grant a pension of 6000 FR. and later Napoleon I doubled this sum.

Adanson, almost octogenarian, still chaired, in 1800, the assembly of the subscribers to raise a monument with the memory of Desaix.

He died in loneliness and the most complete destitution. He exclaimed, while dying: Good-bye, Immortality is not this world… He had asked, in his will, which a garland of flowers taken in the fifty-eight families which he had established, was the only decoration of its coffin.

Homages

• It is in its honor that was named the Adansonia by Carl von Linné (1707-1778) in 1753, because it is Michel Adanson who described the African Baobab ( Adansonia digitata ).
• Its name was also given to a watery tortoise living in the north of Senegal: Pelusios adansonii .
• the town of Aix-en-Provence gave its name to the street in which he was born.

Appendices

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