The Life and Writings of M. Dcsfoniaincs. 211 



esult than that of a conscientious discharge of duty, and this, it is well 

 icnown, is a labor not always the most highly appreciated by the world. 

 By these efforts he gradutdly prepared the three editions of the cat- 

 alogues of the garden, which he published in 1804, 1815, and 1829. 

 The establishment of the Annals of the Museum afforded him an op- 

 portunity of making known a certain number of new or obscurely 

 known plants which had flourished in the garden ; it was from 1802 

 to 1807 especially that he pursued this object by which science was 

 enriched with various interesting particulars. In 1807 and 1808 he 

 was engaged in an analogous labor by inserting first in the Annals, 

 and then collecting into a volume, the beautiful plates that Aubriel 

 had made of oriental plants when he accompanied Tournefort, and 

 by adding descriptions derived mostly from the herbal of this illus- 

 trious botanist. This publication was a real homage to the memory 

 of Tournefort, for whom Desfontaines had a high admiration, and 

 this work, received with gratitude by botanists, has, in reality served 

 to establish in the records of the science, a multitude of objects dis- 

 covered by Tournefort, and which the modems had forgotten or mis- 

 understood. 



The labor of Desfontaines on the plants of India, suggested to him 

 for a moment, the idea of publishing for the benefit of students, a work 

 containing an abridged description of all the plants there cultivated. 

 He did me the honor to assign to me a small part of this duty, and 

 during two or three years, we described, for this purpose, a great 

 number of plants on a uniform plan ; but the immensity of the la- 

 bor, and the continual renewal of species in the garden, rendered 

 tills enterprise at length repulsive. He confined his attention to the 

 resumption of some former engagements on trees, commenced during 

 his connection with Leraonnier and Malesherbes. Animated with a 

 desire of connecting botany with agriculture, he prepared and pub- 

 lished in 1809, his history of trees and shrubs, which may be cul- 

 tivated in open ground on the soil of France. 



This work was not destined to extend the limits of science, but to 

 render it practical and popular. It contains a clear, elegant and ex- 

 act statement of what is known of the history of trees, — a link be- 

 tween the theory of systematic botany, the practice of horticulture 

 and the art of the forester. The author was aided in some parts of 

 this work, as he had also been in the cares of the garden and plants 

 of the museum, by M. deLeuze, an enlightened and literary bota- 

 nist of good taste, to whom he had been several years attached, and 

 who had ever manifested towards him the most devoted affection. 



