Albert Maige (26 November 1872 – 29 November 1943) was a French botanist. Among his works was on the forest flora of Algeria. A major contribution was on the synthesis, movement and storage of starch examining the role of the leucoplast, and the enzymes involved in amylolysis in the cytoplasm. Maige was born in Auxonne, Côte d'Or. After the death of his father, a hairdresser, at young age, he and his brother were taken care of by their mother alone. With scholarships he studied at Auxonne, Dijon and received a bachelor's degree in 1889 (aged 17) and went to join university after a year in military service. He graduated in science in 1895 from the Ecole Normale Supérieure and worked in the lab of

Gaston Bonnier Gaston Eugène Marie Bonnier (9 April 1853 in Paris – 2 January 1922) was a French botanist and plant ecologist. Biography Bonnier first studied at École Normale Supérieure in Paris from 1873 to 1876. Together with Charles Flahault, he st ...

at Fontainebleau-Avon. He studied climbing plants and the effect of light and obtained a doctorate in 1900. He taught botany at Algiers and married Georgette Binsse in 1901. In 1911 he headed the botany department at the faculty of science of Poitiers. He was conscripted in 1914 and demobilized in 1919. His wife died following a thyroid surgery and he then left Poitiers and moved to Lille, exchanging his position with Professor Ricôme. Here he married Lucie Cerrou, a teacher. He then began to study legume embryos and the nature of the

amyloplast Amyloplasts are a type of plastid, double-enveloped organelles in plant cells that are involved in various biological pathways. Amyloplasts are specifically a type of leucoplast, a subcategory for colorless, non-pigment-containing plastids. Amylop ...

while also examining the chromosomes of coastal plants. He helped the agriculture department establish a seed testing laboratory. In 1924 he became dean at Lille. During the German invasion of 1940, he helped move the university to Le Touquet. He died in 1942 after suffering from asthma and fits of coughing. His older daughter with his first wife Hélène Maige became the first woman to hold the position of an assistant in the botany laboratory at Lille in 1937. She then studied pharmacy, graduating in 1927 and married Maurice Hocquette, one the students of her father. She continued to work at the faculty of science in Lille until 1966.

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Biography (in French)

Flore forestière illustrée Comprenant les espèces ligneuses de l'Algérie
(1914)
History of the botanical faculty of sciences 1856-1970 by R. Bouriquet
(in French) {{DEFAULTSORT:Maige, Albert 1872 births 1943 deaths 19th-century French botanists Academic staff of the University of Lille Nord de France 20th-century French botanists