Background
René Louiche Desfontaines was born on the 14th of February, 1750 in Tremblay, France.
Botanist mycologist ornithologist pteridologist university professor bryologist
René Louiche Desfontaines was born on the 14th of February, 1750 in Tremblay, France.
René Louiche Desfontaines attended the Collège de Rennes and in 1773 went to Paris to study medicine.
René Louiche Desfontaines' interest in botany originated from lectures at the Jardin des Plantes given by Louis Guillaume Lemonnier. He excelled in his new interest and was elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 1783. Desfontaines spent two years in Tunisia and Algeria, returning with a large collection of plants.
René Louiche Desfontaines wrote Flora Atlantica (1798–1799, 2 vols), which included 300 genera new to science and posthumously with Alfred Newton Desfontaines"s Mémoire sur quelques nouvelles espèces d"oiseaux des côtes de Barbarie(1880).
René Louiche Desfontaines later became director of the Muséum National d"Histoire Naturelle, was one of the founders of the Institut de France, president of the Academy of Sciences, and elected to the Légion d’honneur.
The genus Desfontainia is named for this author The standard author transcript Desf. is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.
One of Desfontaines's main works was "Flora Atlantica" which included 300 genera new to science.
René Louiche Desfontaines was also a member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine.
