Suzanne Jovet-Ast (born 1914) 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 ...

, who worked principally at the

National Museum of Natural History, France 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 ...

Life

Suzanne Ast was born in

Paris Paris () is the capital and 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), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, France, on 8 February 1914. She received her

Baccalauréat The ''baccalauréat'' (; ), often known in France colloquially as the ''bac'', is a French national academic qualification that students can obtain at the completion of their secondary education (at the end of the ''lycée'') by meeting certain ...

(1932) from

Lycée Voltaire (Paris) The Lycée Voltaire is a secondary school in Paris, France, established in 1890. History The Lycée Voltaire was the first ''lycée'' in the east of Paris, and was intended to supplement classical humanities with practical and scientific knowledg ...

and obtained her doctorate (1943) while at the National Museum of Natural History. In 1939 she married the French botanist Paul Jovet.

Work

She served as Cryptogamy Chair of the National Museum of Natural History from 1975 to 1982. Together with Hélène Bischler-Causse she co-founded the Association des Amis des Cryptogames in 1975. In her early work she studied the flowering plant family

Annonaceae The Annonaceae are a Family (biology), family of flowering plants consisting of trees, shrubs, or rarely lianas commonly known as the custard apple family or soursop family. With 108 accepted genera and about 2400 known species, it is the largest ...

, while the majority of her professional career was focused on

Bryophyte The Bryophyta s.l. are a proposed taxonomic division containing three groups of non-vascular land plants (embryophytes): the liverworts, hornworts and mosses. Bryophyta s.s. consists of the mosses only. They are characteristically limited in ...

s. She retired in 1982.

Legacy

She is the authority for at least 35

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...

using the name Ast including: and 25 using the name Jovet-Ast including:

References

20th-century French botanists Bryologists 1914 births 2006 deaths 20th-century French women scientists Scientists from Paris French women botanists {{Botanist-stub