438 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



practical cultivation and manufactures." Two years later, hi 

 connection with the chemist Peligot, 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 Fuel, as well as the mode of iuq^regnation 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," Asclepiadacece and Plantaginacece, the former de- 

 manding much minute research ; he produced in 1868, in 

 conjunction with Le Maout, that admirable text-book, the 

 " Traite Generale 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 Museum," and his subsidiary investiga- 

 tions and publications upon the Pomacece 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 



