Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart () FRS

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

FGS (14 January 1801 – 18 February 1876) was a French

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

. He was the son of the geologist

Alexandre Brongniart Alexandre Brongniart (5 February 17707 October 1847) was a French chemist, mineralogist, geologist, paleontologist, and zoologist, who collaborated with Georges Cuvier on a study of the geology of the region around Paris. Observing fossil content ...

and grandson of the architect, Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart. Brongniart's pioneering work on the relationships between extinct and existing plants has earned him the title of father of

paleobotany Paleobotany, which is also spelled as palaeobotany, is the branch of botany dealing with the recovery and identification of plant remains from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments (paleogeogr ...

. His major work on plant fossils was his ' (1828–37). He wrote his dissertation on the Buckthorn family (

Rhamnaceae The Rhamnaceae are a large family of flowering plants, mostly trees, shrubs, and some vines, commonly called the buckthorn family. Rhamnaceae is included in the order Rosales. The family contains about 55 genera and 950 species. The Rhamnaceae h ...

), an extant family of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s, and worked at the

Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History, known in French as the ' (abbreviation MNHN), is the national natural history museum of France and a ' of higher education part of Sorbonne Universities. The main museum, with four galleries, is loc ...

in Paris until his death. In 1851, he was elected a foreign member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...

. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Brongn. when citing a

botanical name A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the '' International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants'' (ICN) and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar or Group epithets must conform to the ''Intern ...

Brongniart's works

Brongniart was an indefatigable investigator and a prolific writer of books and memoirs. As early as 1822 he published a paper on the classification and distribution of fossil plants. This was followed by several papers chiefly bearing upon the relation between extinct and existing forms - a line of research which culminated in the publication of the ' ("History of fossil plants"), which has earned for him the title of "father of paleobotany." This classification arranged fossil plants with their nearest living allies; it formed the basis of much subsequent work in paleobotany. It is of especial botanical interest, because, in accordance with Robert Brown's discoveries of the fundamental difference between

Gymnosperm The gymnosperms ( lit. revealed seeds) are a group of seed-producing plants that includes conifers, cycads, ''Ginkgo'', and gnetophytes, forming the clade Gymnospermae. The term ''gymnosperm'' comes from the composite word in el, γυμνό� ...

s and

Angiosperm Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s, the Cycadeae and Coniferae were placed in the new group the gymnosperms. In Brongniart's ' attention was also directed to the succession of forms in the various geological periods, with the important result that in the

Palaeozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and '' ...

period the Pteridophyta are found to predominate; in the

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceo ...

, the Gymnosperms; in the

Cenozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...

, the Angiosperms, a result subsequently more fully stated in his '. But the ''Histoire'' itself was not completed; the publication of successive parts proceeded regularly from 1828 to 1837, when the first volume was completed, but after that only three parts of the second volume appeared. Apart from his more comprehensive works, his most important palaeontological contributions are perhaps his observations on the structure of the treelike lycopodiopsid, '' Sigillaria'', an extinct plant related to the living

club mosses Lycopodiopsida is a class of vascular plants known as lycopods, lycophytes or other terms including the component lyco-. Members of the class are also called clubmosses, firmosses, spikemosses and quillworts. They have dichotomously branching s ...

, and his researches (almost the last he undertook) on fossil seeds, of which a full account was published posthumously in 1880.

Other pursuits

He was active in many branches of botany, including anatomy and the taxonomy of seed-producing plants. Among his achievements in this direction, the most notable is the treatise ' ("On the generation and development of the spermatophyte embryo"), which is remarkable for the first account of any value of the development and structure of

pollen Pollen is a powdery substance produced by seed plants. It consists of pollen grains (highly reduced microgametophytes), which produce male gametes (sperm cells). Pollen grains have a hard coat made of sporopollenin that protects the gametophyt ...

, along with the confirmation of Giovanni Battista Amici's 1823 discovery of the pollen-tube, the confirmation of Robert Brown's views as to the structure of the unimpregnated

ovule In seed plants, the ovule is the structure that gives rise to and contains the female reproductive cells. It consists of three parts: the ''integument'', forming its outer layer, the ''nucellus'' (or remnant of the megasporangium), and the fe ...

(with the introduction of the term "sac embryonnaire", or embryo sac), showing how nearly Brongniart anticipated Amici's subsequent (1846) discovery of the entrance of the pollen-tube into the

micropyle Micropyle may refer to: * Micropyle (botany) In seed plants, the ovule is the structure that gives rise to and contains the female reproductive cells. It consists of three parts: the ''integument'', forming its outer layer, the ''nucellus'' (o ...

, fertilizing the female cell, which then develops into the

embryo An embryo is an initial stage of development of a multicellular organism. In organisms that reproduce sexually, embryonic development is the part of the life cycle that begins just after fertilization of the female egg cell by the male spe ...

. Of his anatomical works, those of the greatest value are probably the " ("Research on the structure and function of leaves"), and the ' ("New research on the epidermis"), in which, among other important observations, the discovery of the

cuticle A cuticle (), or cuticula, is any of a variety of tough but flexible, non-mineral outer coverings of an organism, or parts of an organism, that provide protection. Various types of "cuticle" are non- homologous, differing in their origin, structu ...

is recorded; and, further, the ' ("Research on the organization of

cycad Cycads are seed plants that typically have a stout and woody (ligneous) trunk (botany), trunk with a crown (botany), crown of large, hard, stiff, evergreen and (usually) pinnate leaves. The species are dioecious, that is, individual plants o ...

stems"), giving the results of the first investigation of the anatomy of those plants. His systematic work is represented by a large number of papers and monographs, many of which relate to the

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. E ...

New Caledonia ) , anthem = "" , image_map = New Caledonia on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of New Caledonia , map_caption = Location of New Caledonia , mapsize = 290px , subdivision_type = Sovereign st ...

; and by his ' (1843), a catalogue of the plants in cultivation at the

French National Museum of Natural History French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...

; it is a landmark in the history of classification in that it forms the starting-point of the classification system, modified successively by Alexander Braun,

August W. Eichler August Wilhelm Eichler, also known under his Latinized name, Augustus Guilielmus Eichler (22 April 1839 – 2 March 1887), was a German botanist who developed a new system of classification of plants to reflect the concept of evolution. His au ...

and Adolf Engler, which was not superseded until the development of DNA research. In addition to his scientific and professorial labours, Brongniart held various important official posts in connection with the department of education, and interested himself greatly in agricultural and horticultural matters. With Jean Victoire Audouin and

Jean-Baptiste Dumas Jean Baptiste André Dumas (14 July 180010 April 1884) was a French chemist, best known for his works on organic analysis and synthesis, as well as the determination of atomic weights (relative atomic masses) and molecular weights by measuring v ...

, his future brothers-in-law, Brongniart founded the ''Annales des Sciences Naturelles'', a peer-reviewed journal, in 1824. He also founded the

Société Botanique de France The Société botanique de France (SBF) is a French learned society founded on 23 April 1854. At its inaugural meeting it stated its purpose as "to contribute to the progress of botany and related sciences and to facilitate, by all means at its di ...

in 1854, and was its first president.

References

Books by and about Brongniart on WorldCat.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brongniart, Adolphe-Theodore French paleontologists Paleobotanists 1801 births 1876 deaths Members of the French Academy of Sciences Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Wollaston Medal winners Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Foreign Members of the Royal Society Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery 19th-century French botanists 19th-century French geologists National Museum of Natural History (France) people