488 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 
practical cultivation and manufactures.” Two years later, in 
connection with the chemist Péligot, he published an investi- 
gation of the anatomical structure of the Sugar-beet. His 
classical memoir upon the structure and development of the 
Mistletoe appeared in 1840, and is of purely scientific interest. 
In the year 1841 he showed that the Corallines, which had 
been wrongly carried over to the animal kingdom with the 
Corals and their allies, were genuine Seaweeds, disguised by 
the incorporation of, a great amount of lime into their tissues. 
And about this time, in connection with his friend and former 
pupil, Thuret, he discovered and illustrated the male organs 
of the Muci, as well as the mode of impregnation and repro- 
duction, thus initiating the investigations which in the hands 
of the late Thuret and others have revolutionized phycology. 
Leaving these researches for his associate to complete and 
publish, thenceforth Decaisne turned all his attention to 
phanerogamous botany, morphological and systematic. Two 
orders were elaborated by him for De Candolle’s “ Prodro- 
mus,” Asclepiadacee and Plantaginacee, the former de- 
manding much minute research; he produced in 1868, in 
conjunction with Le Maout, that admirable text-book, the 
“Traité Générale de Botanique,” profusely illustrated by his 
own facile pencil, which is well known in the original and in 
the English translation edited by Sir Joseph Hooker. But 
the works by which he will be most widely known, and which 
were connected especially with his directorship of the Jardin 
des Plantes, are that incomparable series of colored illustra- 
tions of fruits, together with descriptive text, known as “ Le 
Jardin Fruitier du Muséum,” and his subsidiary investiga- 
tions and publications upon the Pomacee and their allies. 
These important publications began in the year 1858, and 
were completed only a year or two ago. 
Decaisne never married: he lived his simple and devoted 
life in the house on Rue Cuvier in the Jardin des Plantes, 
where he died, regretted and beloved, the last of the line of 
illustrious botanists — such as Mirbel, Adrien de Jussieu, 
Gaudichaud, and Adolphe Brongniart — who were associated 
in the administration of this institution thirty or forty years 
ago. 
