Bernard Renault (4 March 1836,

Autun Autun () is a subprefecture of the Saône-et-Loire department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of central-eastern France. It was founded during the Principate era of the early Roman Empire by Emperor Augustus as Augustodunum to give a Ro ...

– 16 October 1904) was a French

paleobotanist 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 ...

. He was a specialist in regard to the anatomy of Carboniferous and

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last ...

plants. In 1867 he earned his doctorate in physical sciences at

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, followed by work as an instructor of chemistry at the college in

Cluny Cluny () is a commune in the eastern French department of Saône-et-Loire, in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. It is northwest of Mâcon. The town grew up around the Benedictine Abbey of Cluny, founded by Duke William I of Aquitaine in ...

(1867–72). Later on, he was associated with 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, serving as a ''préparateur'' (1872–76) and an assistant naturalist (1876–1904). In 1879 he obtained his doctorate in

natural sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

.BHL
Taxonomic literature : a selective guide to botanical publications During his tenure at Cluny, he developed an interest in paleobotany. He conducted studies of fossil flora in the vicinity of his hometown of Autun, an area abundant in

silicified In geology, petrifaction or petrification () is the process by which organic material becomes a fossil through the replacement of the original material and the filling of the original pore spaces with minerals. Petrified wood typifies this proce ...

remains of plants dating from

Permo-Carboniferous The Permo-Carboniferous refers to the time period including the latter parts of the Carboniferous and early part of the Permian period. Permo-Carboniferous rocks are in places not differentiated because of the presence of transitional fossils, and ...

times. His studies of fossil

fern A fern (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta ) is a member of a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. The polypodiophytes include all living pteridophytes exce ...

s led to the founding of a new plant family, Botryopterideae. He also made important findings concerning the

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having it ...

of the extinct genus ''

Sphenophyllum ''Sphenophyllum'' is a genus in the order Sphenophyllales Sphenophyllales is an extinct order of articulate land plants and a sister group to the present-day Equisetales (horsetails). They are fossils dating from the Devonian to the Triassi ...

'', as well as to the anatomy and reproductive aspects of the extinct genus '' Annularia''. His work caught the attention of Adolphe Brongniart, who subsequently offered him a position at the natural history museum in Paris. With Brongniart, he conducted investigations of silicified seeds.Google Books
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London He is credited as the first scientist to account for all organs of the extinct

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, γυμν ...

family

Cordaitaceae Cordaitaceae is an extinct family of conifers. It was named after Czech botanist and mycologist August Carl Joseph Corda August Carl Joseph Corda (1809–1849) was a Czech physician and mycologist. This botanist is denoted by the author abb ...

. The genus ''Renaultia'' was named in his honour by

Charles René Zeiller Prof Charles René Zeiller H FRSE (14 January 1847, in Nancy – 27 November 1915, in Paris) was a French mining engineer and paleobotanist. Life He studied at the École Polytechnique (1865–67) and at the École nationale supérieure des ...

(1883). He was a member of the ''Société éduenne des lettres, sciences et arts'' (from 1867), the ''Société linnéenne de Normandie'', the ''Institut géologique de Vienne'', and in 1884, was deputy associate of the ''Carte géographique de France'' project. In 1886, he was a founding member and first president of the ''Société d'histoire naturelle et des amis du muséum d'Autun''.

Selected works

* ''Recherches sur les végétaux silicifiés d'Autun'', 1876 – Research on the silicified flora of Autun. * ''Végétaux silicifiés d'Autun et de Saint-Etienne. Nouvelles recherches sur la structure des "Sphenophyllum" et sur leurs affinités botaniques'' – Silicified flora of Autun and Saint-Etienne. New research on the structure of ''Sphenophyllum'' and on their botanical affinities. * ''Structure comparée de quelques tiges de la flore carboniféres'', 1879 – Comparative structure of some stems of Carboniferous flora. * ''Cours de botanique fossile fait au Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle'', (1881–1886, 4 volumes) – Course on fossil botany at the ''Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle''. * ''Flore fossile'', (1888–89, 2 volumes) with Charles René Zeiller – Fossil flora. * ''Sur quelques microorganismes des combustibles fossiles'', 1900 – On some micro-organisms found in fossil fuels.OCLC WorldCat
published works

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Renault, Bernard 1836 births 1904 deaths 19th-century French botanists French paleontologists People from Autun Paleobotanists