1835.] M. Desfontaines. 247 



of the revolution, Desfontaines appeared at the opening of 

 the Institute with a work of the first description. His 

 residence in Barbary had given him an opportunity of seeing 

 much of the date tree, and his attention had thus been 

 called to the study of the palm tribe. He had written on 

 this subject some notes to M. Daubenton, who had made 

 use of them in his memoir upon the organization of wood, 

 and had presented a paper upon the subject to the Academy 

 in 1790. 



New reflections, and the comparison of a number of trees 

 had extended his ideas, and enabled him to comprehend 

 the intimate relation which exists between the structure 

 of the trunk and that of the organs of the seed, upon 

 which the basis of the natural classification was placed. 

 In 1796, he presented a memoir upon the organization of 

 monocotyledonous plants, which was received with the 

 greatest praise by botanists, and placed Desfontaines in 

 the highest rank of science. This memoir showed the 

 great differences which exist in the structure and the mode 

 of increase of the two great classes of Phanerogamous 

 vegetables of which, one has the conical trunk increasing 

 by the addition of new layers on the exterior of the ligneous 

 matter, and the other the cylindrical trunk deprived of 

 true bark, and increasing by fibres, of which the youngest 

 are on the centre and the oldest on the sides. This me- 

 moir confirmed their division by characters of the first 

 order, opened a new field to anatomists and classifiers, and 

 although a period of forty years has elapsed, still continues 

 to be the basis of the principal botanical works, the key 

 of the natural method of vegetable organography. The 

 author, astonished at his own triumph, appears to have 

 considered- that he had produced too great a revolution in 

 the science, and left to others the developement of the con- 

 sequences of his discovery, a fact which proves that with 

 superior talents there must be united a certain firmness of 

 character, in order to produce the proper consequences from 

 a discovery. 



From the period of his return from Barbary, Desfontaines 

 was constantly employed in studying, describing, and 

 drawing the plants which he had collected ; and in 1798, he 

 began to publish the result of his labours, under the name 

 of Flore Atlantique. This work created a new era in botany, 



