Barthélémy Victor Rantonnet (1797-1871), gardener, horticulturalist and French nurseryman, a pioneer in the acclimatisation of plants on

Côte d'Azur The French Riviera (known in French as the ; oc, Còsta d'Azur ; literal translation " Azure Coast") is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend fro ...

, and worked in the garden that Jean-Baptiste Fihle de Sainte-Anne had created in

Hyères Hyères (), Provençal Occitan: ''Ieras'' in classical norm, or ''Iero'' in Mistralian norm) is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France. The old town lies from the sea clustered around t ...

(Var). He became interested in the acclimatisation of plants, and transformed the garden into a commercial plant nursery, named "Jardin Filhe" in honour of its former proprietor. He published, among other things, ''"Jardin d'acclimatation, Catalogue des végétaux exotiques"''. ''Solanum rantonnei'' was named in his honour and later synonymised with ''

Lycianthes rantonnetii ''Lycianthes rantonnetii'', the blue potato bush or Paraguay nightshade, is a species of flowering plant in the nightshade family Solanaceae, native plant, native to South America. Growing to about tall and broad, it is a rounded evergreen shru ...

''. In 1883, Charles Huber bought Rantonnet's garden. Hyères became an important centre for the acclimatisation of palms and many residents created their own gardens of exotic plants : Jacques Nicolas Ernest Germain de Saint-Pierre (château Saint-Pierre des Horts), Alphonse Denis (château Denis), Gustave Bonnet (villa Marguerite) and Gustave Charles Ferdinand de Bonstetten (villa Mathilde). :fr:Charles Huber

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rantonnet, Barthelemy Victor 1797 births 1871 deaths French horticulturists