Augustin Pyramus de Candolle was a Swiss botanist. He established a new genus, and he went on to document hundreds of plant families and create a new natural plant classification system.
Background
Candolle was born on February 4, 1778, in Geneva, Switzerland, the son of Augustin de Candolle, a magistrate of the Republic of Geneva, and of the former Louise Eléonore Brière. Candolle developed a love for the “science aimable” while still quite young. His family moved from Geneva to Grandson, in the Vaud district, on the shore of the Lake of Neuchâtel. At the age of fourteen Candolle undertook solitary, ambitious botanizing expeditions and in his plant-study notebooks described, with remarkable attention to detail, the flora of the Swiss Plateau and of the Jura.
Education
In 1794 the Candolle family was in Geneva, and Augustin was attending the Collège de Calvin. He had decided to become a botanist but obeyed his father’s wish that he first study medicine. For two years Candolle followed the courses at the Academy of Geneva. He was nevertheless able to continue his botanical excursions into the countryside around Geneva and in nearby Savoy, gathering numerous specimens and making observations that were later useful in preparing the monographs that brought him fame.
Candolle's had an influential friend, Horace Bénédict de Saussure, one of the most illustrious Genevan scholars of the eighteenth century. Through Saussure, Candolle was initiated into the study of mathematics, philosophy, and physics; he became interested in geology and fossils and went on to study the flora of the past as well as of the present. In 1796 Candolle went to Paris to study both the natural sciences and medicine; there, as in Geneva, he sought contact with the greatest scholars in the city.
Career
When he was a student, Candolle became acquainted with the botanist Jean Pierre Vaucher, pastor of the church of St. Gervais, who later wrote a remarkable work on freshwater algae. Vaucher had great influence on Candolle, with whom he shared his observations on the fertilization of the Confervae; these observations gave rise to Candolle’s classic memoir, Histoire desconferves d’eau douce (1803). Vaucher also showed Candolle part of the manuscript of a work, not published until late in his life, that gave orientation to Candolle’s biological research.
Another acquaintance of Candolle’s was Jean Sénebier, also a pastor who was interested in plant physiology. Through Sénebier, Candolle became aware of the importance of the life processes of plants, and through his contact with this remarkable biologist - whose major contribution was his significant observations on photosynthesis - Candolle was to become not merely a distinguished taxonomist but also a botanist of far wider accomplishment.
Candolle decided to abandon the study of medicine for the natural sciences, particularly botany. In 1797 he began to think seriously of publishing the results of his research. His early memoirs dealt more with experimental biology than with descriptive taxonomy. He made a careful study of the germination of legumes and a detailed report on the absorption of water by seeds under various conditions. He was interested in lichens and tried, by rudimentary means, to analyze their nutrition, so he gathered important information on medicinal plants. Finally, in 1798 Candolle decided to publish his first botanical paper; it was on Reticularia rosea, a plant that he had discovered in the Jura.
During the years 1799-1802 Candolle brought out his first important work (in twenty sections), Plantarum historia succulentarum, to which he added eight final sections in 1803. Meanwhile, the political situation in Geneva was growing worse, and Candolle decided to settle in Paris, where he remained until 1808. Besides his botanical work, which he pursued enthusiastically, he occupied himself with the welfare of the poor and published several essays on philanthropy and political economy. In 1808 Candolle was called to Montpellier, to the chair of botany at the École de Médecine and the Faculté des Sciences; he lived there until 1816.
The peaceful life of this provincial town allowed him ample opportunity to organize the countless research papers that he had accumulated during his ten years in Paris. Eventually, however, he found such a life monotonous. The Academy of Geneva had made Candolle an honorary professor in 1800; in 1802 the directors had offered him a chair in zoology, which he declined on the ground that his work was more oriented toward botany. In 1816, however, when a chair was established for him in natural history, he left Montpellier for Geneva. With the support of the Republic and Canton of Geneva (which had become part of Switzerland in 1815), as well as of the people of Geneva, Candolle completely reorganized the botanical gardens created by the Société de Physique in 1791; these gardens opened on 19 November 1817 and served as a model of the genre for many years. Candolle played an active role in the creation of a museum of natural history that, through the support of Henri Boissier, rector of the Academy, had begun as early as 1811 to receive the physics and natural history collections of many Genevan scholars. He was also responsible for the founding of the Conservatoire Botanique. The excellent collections of this center of taxonomic research permitted it to make important contributions to the development of botany in the nineteenth century.
During his twenty-five years in Geneva, Candolle was active in many fields besides botany. He was associated with the public library, the Société des Arts, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts. He was concerned with the politics of his canton and from 1816 to 1841 was a member of its representative body. He was rector of the Academy from 1831 to 1832. When Candolle retired from the Academy in 1835, his chair was divided: his son Alphonse succeeded to the chair of botany and his best student, Jean François Pictet, to that of zoology. The six years remaining to Candolle were clouded by illness. His death, which occurred on September 9, 1841, was greatly mourned by his colleagues and fellow citizens.