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 Duineril 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 Ea- 

 mond. Instead of translating De Candolle's remarks, we may 

 as well give them in the original. 



" II [Mirbel] savait alors peu de botanique, mais il annoncait de 

 l'esprit et des talents. Je me liai avec lui. II venait souvent de- 

 jeuner chez moi. Nous causions botanique ; j'avais deux ou trois 

 ans d'avance sur lui, et j'etais naturellement communicatif ; je lui 

 fis parts de plusieurs id£es, nouvelles pour lui, et dont quelques-unes 

 l'^taient pour le science. Elles parurent l'interresser, car j'en retrou- 

 vai une grande partie dans les elements de physiologie qu'il publia 

 peu d'annees apres ; telles sont la distinction des feuilles sdminales 

 et primordiales, l'importance de Tetude des nervures principales des 

 feuilles, etc. Appele a rendre un compte succinct de cette ouvrage 

 dans le ' Bulletin philomathique,' je me divertis a ne citer que les 

 ide*es que j'avais suggerees a l'auteur ; je n'en revindiquai aucune, 



