Louis Édouard Bureau (25 May 1830 in

Nantes Nantes (, ; ; or ; ) is a city in the Loire-Atlantique department of France on the Loire, from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. The city is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, sixth largest in France, with a pop ...

– 14 December 1918 in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

) was a French

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

and

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

. Édouard Bureau began his medical studies in Nantes in 1848, where he held the post of director of the Muséum de Nantes (Nantes Museum). He completed his medical degree in Paris in 1852. In 1872 he obtained a post as a naturalist assistant at the ''Muséum national d'histoire naturelle'' ( French National Museum of Natural History) in the laboratory of Adolphe Brongniart, where he replaced

Edmond Tulasne Louis René Étienne Tulasne, a.k.a. Edmond Tulasne (12 September 1815 – 22 December 1885) was a French botanist and mycologist born in Azay-le-Rideau. He originally studied law at Poitiers, but his interest later turned to botany. As a youn ...

. In 1874 he received appointment to the new botany post dealing with classification. Beginning in 1875, he was a director of the

herbaria A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

at the museum. He was a professor at the museum from 1874 until he retired in 1905. Adrien Franchet was his assistant in the 80's. He was succeeded by

Paul Henri Lecomte Paul Henri Lecomte (8 January 1856, in Saint-Nabord, Vosges – 12 June 1934, in Paris) was a French botanist. In 1884, after attaining a number of degrees, Lecomte became a professor at Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris. In addition to his teaching dut ...

. Bureau was one of the founders of 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 ...

'' (''French Botanical Society'') and was the chairman in 1875, 1883, 1902 and 1905. In 1895 he was elected to the French Academy of Medicine. From 1895 to 1917, he was a member of the ''Comité travaux of the historiques et scientifiques'' (''French Committee for Historical and Scientific Endeavors''). Bureau was a significant contributor to Baillon’s ''Dictionnaire de Botanique'' (''Botanical Dictionary''). He wrote the chapters on the

Moraceae Moraceae is a family of flowering plants comprising about 48 genera and over 1100 species, and is commonly known as the mulberry or fig family. Most are widespread in tropical and subtropical regions, less so in temperate climates; however, their ...

, including the

Artocarpeae Artocarpeae is a tribe (biology), tribe within the plant family Moraceae. It includes 7 to 12 genus, genera and 70 to 87 species including ''Artocarpus altilis'', the breadfruit. Description Species in the Artocarpeae are tropical trees or shru ...

(the

breadfruit Breadfruit (''Artocarpus altilis'') is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry and jackfruit family ( Moraceae) believed to have been selectively bred in Polynesia from the breadnut ('' Artocarpus camansi''). Breadfruit was spread into ...

tribe), for volume XVII (1873) of Candolle’s ''Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis'' (''A preliminary natural system for the plant kingdom''). Together with

Karl Moritz Schumann Karl Moritz Schumann (17 June 1851 – 22 March 1904) was a German botanist. Schumann was born in Görlitz. He was curator of the Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum, Botanisches Museum in Berlin-Dahlem from 1880 until 1894. ...

, he wrote the

Bignoniaceae Bignoniaceae () is a Family (biology), family of flowering plants in the Order (biology), order Lamiales commonly known as the bignonias or trumpet vines.Vernon H. Heywood, Richard K. Brummitt, Ole Seberg, and Alastair Culham. ''Flowering Plant ...

section of Volume VIII of

Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius Carl Friedrich Philipp (Karl Friedrich Philipp) von Martius (17 April 1794 – 13 December 1868) was a German botany, botanist and explorer. Between 1817 and 1820, he travelled 10,000 km through Brazil while collecting botanical specimens. His m ...

’s '' Flora brasiliensis'' (Flora of Brazil). Bureau was particularly interested in paleobotany and significantly increased the museum's paleontological holdings. From 1910–1914 he published a two-volume work on the fossils of the

Loire The Loire ( , , ; ; ; ; ) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône. It rises in the so ...

basin, and in 1911, he published a further work specifically on the

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a period (geology), geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era during the Phanerozoic eon (geology), eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian per ...

there. The species '' Rhododendron bureavii,'' belonging to the taxonomically complex group of elepidote (nonscaly)

rhododendrons ''Rhododendron'' (; : ''rhododendra'') is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are native to eastern Asia and the Himalayan region, b ...

, was named in his honor and was based upon specimens from

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

in his private collection.

Selected publications

* ''Monographie des Bignoniacées: ou histoire générale et particulière des plantes qui composent cet ordre naturel,'' 186
OCLC 5932136
* with Adrien Franchet (1834–1900) ''Plantes nouvelles du Thibet et de la Chine occidentale : recueillies pendant le voyage de M. Bonvalot et du

prince Henri d'Orléans A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The fema ...

en 1890'', 189
OCLC 25054778
*''De la famille des Loganiacées et des plantes qu'elle fournít a la médecine.'' 1856. *''Notice sur les travaux scientifiques de M.É. Bureau.'' 1901, 1864. *''Révision du genre Catalpa.'' 1894. *''Bassin houiller de la basse Loire.'' 1910–1914, Etudes des gîtes minéraux de la France *''Notice sur la géologie de la Loire-Inférieure… avec listes des végétaux fossiles'' published in ''Nantes et la Loire inférieure, III'' Imprimerie Grimaud, Nantes (1900), pp. 99–522.

Notes

References

* Jaussaud, Philippe and Brygoo, Édouard-Raoul (2004) ''Du Jardin au Muséum en 516 Biographies'' Publications scientifiques du Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris,

External links

in French

in French {{DEFAULTSORT:Bureau, Louis Edouard 20th-century French botanists Members of the French Academy of Sciences 1830 births 1918 deaths Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery 19th-century French botanists