406 ALPHONSE DE CANDOLLE. 



ALPHONSE DE CANDOLLE. 



Alphonse Louis Pierre Pyramus de Candolle, born in 

 Paris, 27 October, 1806, a son of the botanist, Augustin Pyrame 

 de Candolle, was for sixty years a prominent figure in the botauical 

 world, and with hardly any perceptible diminution of his mental 

 powers, having reached an age which made him one of the oldest of 

 living botanists, he died at Geneva, 4 April, 1893, leaving a son to 

 represent the third generation of botanists in this remarkable family. 

 His early life was passed at Montpellier, where his father was Pro- 

 fessor until the family removed to Geneva. In 1825 he began the 

 study of law at Geneva, taking his degree in 1829. From 1831 he 

 assisted his father in his duties as Professor of Botany, and in 1835 

 he succeeded him in that position, which he held until 1850 when he 

 retired to private life, his ample private fortune enabling him to devote 

 himself to botany. In 1832 he was married to Mile. Jeanne Kuukler, 

 who died forty-five years later. The greater part of his married life 

 was passed in Geneva in the winter, and at his country-house in 

 Vallon in the suburbs of that city in the summer ; but during the last 

 few years of his life he did not leave the house on the Cour Saint- 

 Pierre, well known to all botanists as containing the great herbarium 

 founded by his father. 



One is naturally tempted to compare the botanical work of 

 Alphonse de Candolle with that of his father, under whose guidance 

 he was trained ; but in fact no comparison is possible, for the charac- 

 teristics of their scientific work were very different, and their natural 

 tastes were quite dissimilar. The elder De Candolle was one of the 

 masters of descriptive botany. In 1826 he commenced the publication 

 of the Prodromus. a work planned on a vast scale to include descrip- 

 tions of all known plants, of which seven volumes had already appeared 

 previous to his death, in 1841. Although the name of Alphonse de 

 Candolle was associated with that of his father in the Prodromus., he 

 had no real fondness for descriptive work, being more interested in 

 other botanical subjects. It should not be understood, however, that, 

 even if his tastes were not in this special direction, his descriptive 

 work was not excellent. On the contrary, his first j'^per, Mono- 

 graphie des Campanulacees, published in 1831, was not only admirable 

 from a taxonomic point of view, but was also valuable for the notes on 

 plant distribution, a subject which he was destined to treat more fully 

 at a later day. On the death of his father, De Candolle took charge 



