Barthélemy Charles Joseph Dumortier (; 3 April 1797 in Tournai – 9 July 1878) was a Belgian who conducted a parallel career of botanist and Member of Parliament.

Biography

Barthélemy Dumortier was a son of the merchant and city councillor Barthélemy-François Dumortier and of Mariue-Jeanne Willaumez. He married Philippine Ruteau and they had a son, Barthélemy-Noël Dumortier (1830-1915). Barthélemy-Charles became politically active in the early eighteen twenties. In 1824 he founded the ''Courrier de l'Escaut'', a paper critical of the government. He adhered in 1830 to the Belgian revolution. In 1831 he became a member of the first elected parliament of the new kingdom, as the member for Tournai. He remained elected until 1847. He then switched seats, and was now elected for the city of Roulers and held this seat until his death. In 1872 he was awarded the honorary title of Minister of State. He also was awarded nobility with the title of earl. However, for unknown reasons, he did not raise the necessary patent letters and was therefore not ennobled.

Botanist

In the early 1820s, Dumortier published in Latin his first contribution to botany. In 1827 he published a complete national flora, the ''Florula Belgica''. In 1829 Dumortier was already regarded as one of the greatest naturalists of the Low-Countries and became a member of the Académie de Bruxelles. He not only studied botany but also zoology. In 1835 Dumortier first proposed the genus

Lepidozia ''Lepidozia'' is a genus of liverwort The Marchantiophyta () are a division of non-vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells o ...

. His reputation as a botanist was so brilliant that the Home Office asked him to be its representative in the Brussels’ Botanic Garden, then a joint stock company, supported by the State. In 1862, the ''Société Royale de Botanique de Belgique'' was created and Dumortier became its president. When the company that ran the Brussels’ botanic garden collapsed, Dumortier developed the idea of a state-owned botanic garden in the capital. He succeeded in convincing the Parliament in 1869 of buying the impressive herbarium and dried collections of the late Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius. A few months later the state bought the garden of the 'Société Royale d’Horticulture de Belgique'. Dumortier hoped to create a botanic garden whose role model was the Royal Kew Gardens. His name was given to two plant species: to the ''Hemerocallis dumortieri'' ( Hemerocallidoideae) and to the ''Stenocereus dumortieri'' (

Cactaceae A cactus (, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Gre ...

). Also he was honoured in 1863, in the naming of ''

Mortierella ''Mortierella'' species are soil fungi belonging to the order Mortierellales within the subphylum Mortierellomycotina (phylum: Mucoromycota). The widespread genus contains about 85 species. Taxonomy The genus name of ''Mortierella'' is in honou ...

'', which is species are soil

fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately fr ...

belonging to the order Mortierellales. Then in 1967, ''

Aquamortierella ''Aquamortierella'' is a fungal genus in the Mortierellaceae family of the Zygomycota Zygomycota, or zygote fungi, is a former division or phylum of the kingdom Fungi. The members are now part of two phyla: the Mucoromycota and Zoopagomyco ...

'' is a fungal

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

in the Mortierellaceae family of the Zygomycota. Some consider him to be the true discoverer of cell division, although he is rarely credited as such.

Honours

* 1870 : Grand Cordon in Order of Leopold.Handelsblad (Het) 25-07-1870

List of selected publications

* * * ''Commentationes botanicae. Observations botaniques'' (imprimerie de C. Casterman-Dieu, Tournay, 1823). * ''Observations sur les graminées de la flore de Belgique'' (J. Casterman aîné, Tournay, 1823). * ''Lettres sur le manifeste du Roi et les griefs de la nation, par Belgicus'' (J. Casterman aîné, Tournay, 1830). * ''Sylloge Jungermannidearum Europae indigenarum, earum genera et species systematice complectens'' (J. Casterman aîné, Tournay, 1830). * ''Recherches sur la structure comparée et le développement des animaux et des végétaux'' (M. Hayez, Bruxelles, 1832). * ''Essai carpographique présentant une nouvelle classification des fruits'' (M. Hayez, Bruxelles, 1835). * ''La Belgique et les vingt-quatre articles'' (Société nationale, Bruxelles, 1838). * ''Observations complémentaires sur le partage des dettes des Pays-Bas'' (Société nationale, Bruxelles, 1838). *

Literature

* Oscar COOMANS DE BRACHENE, Etat présent de la noblesse belge'', Annuaire 1988, Brussels, 1988. * Jean-Luc DE PAEPE & Christiane RAINDORF-GERARD, ''Le Parlement belge, 1831-1894'', Brussels, 1996.

References

IPNI Profile

Dumortier on website of National Botanic Garden

External links

* Books by Dumortier at the Biodiversity librar

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dumortier, Barthelemy Charles Joseph 19th-century Belgian botanists Bryologists 1797 births 1878 deaths Belgian Ministers of State Barons of Belgium Politicians from Tournai