Antoine Laurent de Jussieu. 305 



In 1790, he was nominated by his section member of the munici- 

 pality of Paris^ and was entrusted, under that title, with the manage- 

 ment of the city hospitals : he fulfilled these duties till the year 1792. 

 In 1793, the garden of plants, or King's garden, was remodelled 

 under the name of the museum of natural history. All the per- 

 sons appointed, under different titles, to teach or take charge of the 

 collections were raised to the rank of professors, and entrusted with 

 the management of the establishment. M. de Jussieu who, like 

 Vaillant and Bernard de Jussieu, had hitherto been merely a de- 

 monstrator, was appointed, with the title of professor of rural botany, 

 to teach that science in the country. He thus shared the task of 

 teaching botany with his colleague Desfontaines ; and his herborisa- 

 tions, attended by a crowd of young students, and distinguished 

 amateurs, contributed to spread a taste for the study, and to diffuse 

 the enlightened principles which he had introduced into the science ; 

 and his followers were predisposed to give a favourable reception 

 to the latter, when they witnessed the simplicity and kindness of 

 him who demonstrated them. 



Having been chosen successively by his colleagues to be director 

 and treasurer in the administration of the museum, he rendered im- 

 portant services to the establishment in these capacities, particular- 

 ly at the difficult period of its reorganization, when, notwithstanding 

 the obstacles which political events often opposed to the prosperity 

 and even the existence of the museum, he found means, by his zeal 

 and activity, to perform services of the highest advantage to it. 



He resumed the publication of his botanical researches when the 

 Annales du Museum were commenced in 1802. 



Besides a series of notices on the history of the Museum of na- 

 tural history, we find in the early volumes of this collection many 

 memoirs on new or imperfectly described genera ; or on families which 

 recent discoveries or more exact observations have enriched with 

 new genera. Thus the Amaranthae, the Nyctaginese, and the Ona- 

 grariae were successively submitted to a new examination. 



It may be perceived that his object in these investigations was to 

 bring the Genera Playitarum and the natural method nearer perfec- 

 tion ; but this purpose became more evident in the fifth volume of 

 the collection, in 1804, when he began to publish a series of me- 

 moirs devoted to the examination of the general characters of the 

 families derived from the fruit, and confirmed or rectified by the 

 observations of Gsertner. He mentions at the same time the addi- 

 tions which these families had received since the appearance of the 

 Genera, and discusses questionable points of organization or synony- 



