Abstract
PHILIBERT COMMERSON was one of our greatest naturalists, and we cordially welcome the first life to be published in English. Until twenty-one years of age he struggled with the law, in 1848 turning to medicine, which he studied at Montpellier. In those days the whole of biology was a relatively small study, and Commerson began to be distinguished in every line in his own small university sphere. However, the influence of Linnasus turned him towards botany, the chief research in which was at that time the discovery and description of new species. He worked in the botanic gardens at Montpellier, but a jealous professor intervened, and, on the excuse that he had purloined a fruit from the gardens for his herbarium, interdicted him from entering them. He became a scientific outcast, a circumstance we cannot deplore, since, it made; him a wanderer, the first scientific visitor to many lands. At first, as was the way in those days, he started to form a garden, where all the species of plants of the temperate regions should be grown. He travelled widely in western Europe, and arranged exchanges of seeds and fruits with every garden of note, he himself being the proud possessor of many new plants which he had discovered. One list of his shows the trees and shrubs of south-east France, arranged in environments, almost as Schimper might have done them.
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G., J. A Great Naturalist 1 . Nature 80, 430–431 (1909). https://doi.org/10.1038/080430a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/080430a0