Aimé Bonpland
Template:Short description Template:Redirect Template:Infobox scientist Aimé Jacques Alexandre BonplandTemplate:Sfnp (Template:IPA; 22 August 1773 – 11 May 1858) was a French explorer and botanist who traveled with Alexander von Humboldt in Latin America from 1799 to 1804. He co-authored volumes of the scientific results of their expedition.
Biography
Bonpland was born as Aimé Jacques Alexandre GoujaudTemplate:Sfnp in La Rochelle, France, on 22,Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp 28,<ref name=cbs>Template:Citation.</ref><ref>Parish register. Paroisse Saint-Barthélémy, La Rochelle. Archives départementales, Charente-Maritime, Archives en ligne.</ref> or 29Template:Citation needed August 1773. His father was a physicianTemplate:Sfnp and, around 1790, he joined his brother Michael in Paris, where they both studied medicine.<ref name=shadow>Template:Cite book</ref> From 1791, they attended courses given at Paris's Botanical Museum of Natural History. Their teachers included Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, and René Louiche Desfontaines;<ref name=shadow /> Aimé further studied under Jean-Nicolas CorvisartTemplate:Sfnp and may have attended classes given by Pierre-Joseph Desault at the Hôtel-Dieu. During this period, Aimé also befriended his fellow student, Xavier Bichat.Template:Citation needed
Amid the turmoil of the French Revolution and Revolutionary Wars, Bonpland served as a surgeon in the French armyTemplate:Sfnp or navy.Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
Having befriended Alexander von Humboldt at Corvisart's house,Template:Sfnp he joined him on a five-year journey to Tenerife and the Spanish colonial empire in the Americas,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> traveling to what later became the independent states of Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Mexico, as well as the Orinoco and Amazon basins, with a last stop in the United States.Template:Sfnp<ref name="Rooks2019">Template:Cite web</ref> As part of the exploration, in 1802 he climbed the highest mountain in Ecuador, the extinct volcano Chimborazo, to a height of 19,286 feet, at the time a world record altitude for a Westerner.<ref name="McC">Template:Cite book</ref> During this trip, he collected and classified about 6,000 plants that were mostly unknown in Europe up to that time.Template:Sfnp His account of these findings was published as a series of volumes from 1808 to 1816 entitled Equatorial Plants (Template:Langx).Template:Sfnp
Upon his return to Paris, Napoleon granted him a pension of 3000 francs per year in return for the many specimens he bestowed upon the Museum of Natural History.Template:Sfnp The Empress Josephine was very fond of him and installed him as superintendent over the gardens at Malmaison,Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp where many seeds he had brought from the Americas were cultivated.Template:Sfnp In 1813, he published his Description of the Rare Plants Cultivated at Malmaison and in Navarre (Template:Lang).Template:Sfnp During this period, he also became acquainted with Gay-Lussac, Arago, and other eminent scientists and, after the abdication of Fontainebleau, vainly pleaded with Napoleon to retire to Venezuela.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp He was present at Josephine's deathbed.Template:Sfnp
In 1816, he took various European plants to Buenos Aires, where he was elected professor of natural history.Template:Sfnp He soon left his post, however, to explore the interior of South America.Template:Sfnp In 1821, he established a colony at Santa Ana near the Paraná for the specific object of harvesting and selling yerba mate.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The colony was located in territory claimed by both Paraguay and Argentina; further, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, dictator of Paraguay, "feared that Bonpland's success in cultivating mate would interfere with his own attempt to monopolize that business."<ref>George Sarton (1943) "Aimé Bonpland (1773–1858)", Isis 34: 385–99, reprinted in George Sarton on the History of Science (1962), Dorothy Stimson editor, Harvard University Press</ref> The Paraguayans therefore destroyed the colony on December 8, 1821, and Bonpland was arrested as a spy and detained at Santa Maria, Paraguay<ref>Rengger, Johan Rudolf: (1827) Ensayo Historico</ref> until 1829.Template:Sfnp<ref>Template:Citation. Template:In lang</ref> During his captivity, he married and had several children.<ref>Schinini, Aurelio (2013) Aimé Bonpland: Un naturalista francés en Corrientes.</ref> He was given freedom of movement and acted as a physician for the local poorTemplate:Sfnp and the military garrison.Template:Sfnp At the same epoch, the Swiss naturalist Johann Rudolph Rengger also stayed in Paraguay: he was not allowed to cross the strictly guarded border, but was free to circulate pending the request of a special permit for each excursion.<ref name="Schumann1889_ADB">Template:Cite ADB</ref>
Bonpland was freed in 1829Template:Sfnp and in 1831Template:Sfnp returned to Argentina, where he settled at San Borja in Corrientes.Template:Sfnp There, aged 58, he married a local woman and made a living farming and trading in yerba mate.Template:Sfnp<ref>Template:Citation. Template:In lang</ref> In 1853, he returned to Santa Ana, where he cultivated the orange trees he had introduced.Template:Sfnp He received a Template:Nowrappiastre estate from the Corrientes government in gratitude for his work in the province.Template:Sfnp The small town around it is now known as "Bonpland" in his honor.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A different small town in Misiones province just south of Santa Ana (Misiones) is also named Bonpland.
He died at age 84, at San Borja,Template:Sfnp Santa Ana,Template:Sfnp or Restauración<ref name=cbs/> on 4Template:Sfnp or 11<ref name=cbs/> May 1858, before his planned return to Paris.Template:Sfnp
Legacy
His collection of plant specimens deposited in Paris at the National Museum of Natural History, France was curated by Alicia Lourteig.<ref name="Sastre2003">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Bonpland's biography was written by Adolphe Brunel.<ref>Template:OCLC</ref> A fictionalized account of his travels with Humboldt occurs in Daniel Kehlmann's Die Vermessung der Welt, translated by Carol Brown Janeway as Measuring the World: A Novel.
Bonpland Street in the upscale Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo Hollywood lies among streets named after Charles Darwin, Robert FitzRoy, and Alexander von Humboldt.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> There is also a Bonpland Street in the city of Bahía Blanca, Argentina, in Caracas, Venezuela, and in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Many animals and plants are also named in his honor, including the plant genus Bonplandia, the willow Salix bonplandiana, the squid Grimalditeuthis bonplandi, and the orchid Ornithocephalus bonplandi.
The lunar crater Bonpland is named after him.<ref>Template:Gpn</ref> Also Pico Bonpland in the Venezuelan Andes is named to his honor, although he never visited the Venezuelan Andes.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Mount Bonpland Template:Convert in New Zealand also bears his name. The mountain is near the head of Lake Wakatipu in the South Island.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Bonpland Prize set up by the National Horticultural Society of France to promote the creation or restoration of pleasure gardens by amateur gardeners, was named after Aimé Bonpland.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Taxonomic descriptions
The following genera and species have been named or described by Aimé Bonpland.<ref>IPNI</ref>
Genera
Species
Works
- 1805: Essai sur la géographie des plantes. Written with Alexander von Humboldt.
- Template:Cite book English translation from 2009.
- 1811: A collection of observations on zoology and comparative anatomy written with Alexander von Humboldt, Printing JH Stone, Paris. Digital version at the website Gallica.
- 1813: Description of rare plants grown at Malmaison and Navarre by Aimé Bonpland. Printing P. The elder Didot, Paris. By Aimé Bonpland dedicated to the Empress Joséphine. Digital version Template:Webarchive at the website Botanicus, and Digital version of the illustrations at the website of the Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de santé (Interuniversity Library of Health).
- 1815: Nova plantarum genera and species written with Alexander von Humboldt and Karl Sigismund Kunth, Volume 1, Lutetiae Parisiorum, Paris. Digital version Template:Webarchive at the website Botanicus.
- 1816: Monograph Melastomacées including all plants of this order including Rhexies, Volume 1, Paris.
- 1817: Nova plantarum genera and species written with Alexander von Humboldt and Karl Sigismund Kunth, Volume 2, Lutetiae Parisiorum, Paris. Digital version Template:Webarchive at the website Botanicus.
- 1818: Nova plantarum genera and species written with Alexander von Humboldt and Karl Sigismund Kunth, Volume 3, Lutetiae Parisiorum, Paris. Digital version at the website Botanicus.
- 1820: Nova plantarum genera and species written with Alexander von Humboldt and Karl Sigismund Kunth, Volume 4, Lutetiae Parisiorum, Paris. Digital version at the website Botanicus.
- 1821: Nova plantarum genera and species written with Alexander von Humboldt and Karl Sigismund Kunth, Volume 5, Lutetiae Parisiorum, Paris. Digital version at the website Botanicus.
- 1823: Nova plantarum genera and species written with Alexander von Humboldt and Karl Sigismund Kunth, Volume 6, Lutetiae Parisiorum, Paris. Digital version at the website Botanicus.
- 1823: Monograph Melastomacées including all plants of this order including Rhexies, Volume 2, Paris.
- 1825: Nova plantarum genera and species written with Alexander von Humboldt and Karl Sigismund Kunth, Volume 7, Lutetiae Parisiorum, Paris. Digital version at the website Botanicus.
See also
- Rengger, Johann Rudolph (1795–1832)
- von Humboldt, Alexander (1769–1859)
- Category:Taxa named by Aimé Bonpland
References
Citations
Bibliography
- Template:Cite Appletons'
- Template:Cite AmCyc
- Template:Citation.
- Template:Cite EB9
- Template:Cite EB1911
External links
- 19th-century French explorers
- 19th-century French botanists
- 19th-century French physicians
- 1773 births
- 1858 deaths
- Alexander von Humboldt
- Botanists active in North America
- Botanists active in South America
- French emigrants to Argentina
- French phycologists
- People from La Rochelle
- French pteridologists
- University of Paris alumni