294 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 
from Alexander Brongniart, the mineralogist (whom De Can- 
dolle had slightly known, through Dolomieu, on his first visit 
to Paris), connected him with a small party of naturalists 
who made an excursion to Fontainebleau. Besides Dejean, 
the entomologist, then very young, Cuvier and Dumeril were 
of the party. In the autumn of the same year he visited 
Normandy, with less celebrated companions, and formed his 
first acquaintance with marine vegetation. The next year he 
made a visit to Holland, to consult the gardens and conserva- 
tories of that country, the richest in the “ plantes grasses,” 
which then occupied his attention. One result of this jour- 
ney was that he induced his friend Benjamin Delessert to 
purchase Burmann’s herbarium, and thus to lay the founda- 
tion of the important collections and library at the Hotel De- 
lessert which have been so useful to naturalists, and so liber- 
ally devoted to their service. During the winter of the fol- 
lowing year De Candolle elaborated the “ Astragalogia,” his 
first independent work of any considerable consequence, and 
which was published two years later; in this he found oppor- 
tunity to dedicate to his friend Delessert the Leguminous 
genus Lessertia. 
About this time, namely, at the beginning of the century, he 
became acquainted with Mirbel, who had come up to Paris 
from the south of France, where he had been a pupil of Ra- 
mond. Instead of translating De Candolle’s remarks, we may 
as well give them in the original. 
“T]1 [Mirbel] savait alors peu de botanique, mais il annoneait de 
esprit et des talents. Je me liai avec lui. II venait souvent dé- 
jeuner chez moi. Nous causions botanique ; javais deux ou trois 
ans d’avance sur lui, et j’étais naturellement communicatif ; je lui 
fis parts de plusieurs idées, nouvelles pour lui, et dont quelques-unes 
l’étaient pour le science. Elles parurent l’interresser, car j’en retrou- 
vai une grande partie dans les éléments de physiologie qu’il publia 
peu d’années apres; telles sont la distinction des feuilles séminales 
et primordiales, l’importance de I’étude des nervures principales des 
feuilles, ete. Appelé & rendre un compte succinct de cette ouvrage 
dans le ‘ Bulletin philomathique,’ je me divertis 4 ne citer que les 
idées que j’avais suggérées & l’auteur; je n’en revindiquai aucune, 
