1835.] M. Desfontaines. 249 



of repairing every evening to the Society of his friend 

 M. Thonin, with whom he spent many agreeable hours, in 

 company with the painter Van Spaendonck, and the geolo- 

 gist Faugas de St. Fond. His sister also occasionally visited 

 him, when she was able to leave her native Brittany. In 

 these circumstances, having met with a young woman, 

 without fortune it is true, but of an open and agreeable 

 character, he married her at the age of 63 years. This 

 union commenced under happy auspices, and his letters at 

 that period prove the degree of his happiness. He became 

 the father of a daughter, for whom he entertained the 

 greatest affection, which was the more felt in consequence 

 of his being obliged to separate from his wife, by reason of 

 a disease induced by a weak and delicate constitution. He 

 now occupied his time with the examination of the herbaria 

 of the museum, and from 1815 to 1822, enriched Science 

 with a description of seventeen new genera of plants, in the 

 Memoirs of the Museum. These genera are Pogostemon, 

 Chardinia, Ricinocarpos, Gymnarhena, Ancylanthos, Hetero- 

 dendron, Mezoneuron, Heterostemon, Ledocarpon, Micrantha, 

 Dipophractum, Stylobasium, Chamaelancium, Polyphagmos, 

 Asteranthos, Gyrostemon, Cordylocarpon. He published also 

 about the same time new observations upon some known 

 genera, as Leucas, Amaiona. He continued his zeal in making 

 the reports with which he was entrusted by the Academy 

 of Sciences, till between his 70th and 80th year, at an age 

 when most men are anxious for retirement. But his senses 

 gradually began to fail him ; his sight especially, which was 

 at one time so acute, became weaker, and in his 80th year 

 he was threatened with total blindness. Yet, on the 10th 

 October 1831, while in this state, he wrote a letter to De 

 Candolle, describing an observation which he had made on 

 the fecundation of plants, which, although not new, is not 

 without interest. 



It was represented to him that a chance existed of re- 

 covering his sight by an operation for cataract. Sometimes 

 he felt inclined to believe this, but at other times he remem- 

 bered what had been said to his colleague M. Lamarck, on a 

 similar situation, and he derided his own credulity. Still 

 he preserved the cheerfulness of his disposition and the 

 benevolence of his heart ; amused himself with his plants, 

 and was delighted when he could recognize any of them by 



