T 0 U T O U 49 
14 miles north-by-east of Melun, and 17 south-south-west of 
Meaux. 
TOURNAY, a small town in the south-west of France, 
department of the Upper Pyrenees. Population 800; 12 
miles south-east of Tarbes. 
TOURNAY, a large town of the Netherlands, the chief 
place of a district in the province of Hainault. It adjoins the 
frontier of French Flanders, and is traversed by the Scheldt, 
which has here more the appearance of a canal than a river. 
On one side of it is a broad and handsome quay, almost the 
only embellishment of the town, which in general is ill 
built and gloomy. 
TOURNEFORT (Joseph Pitton de), the great leader of 
the French school of botany, and one of the three most 
distinguished systematic writers of the age preceding Lin¬ 
naeus, was born at Aix, in Provence, in 1656. Being des¬ 
tined by his parents for the church, he was educated at the 
Jesuits’ college of his native town ; but he soon imbibed a 
taste for natural knowledge, which led him at the age of 
21 , on the death of his father, to change his original desti¬ 
nation, for the profession of physic. This latter indeed was 
but subservient to a most ardent devotion for botanic science, 
which ever after made the object and the happiness of his 
life. Having soon exhausted the botanical riches of a phy¬ 
sic-garden at Aix, and of the circumjacent fields, he ex¬ 
tended his researches to the neighbouring Alps, and after¬ 
wards to the Pyrenees, where his hardy frame of body, and 
his observing enterprising mind, rendered easy to him the 
acquisition of the principal vegetable stores of those ro¬ 
mantic and fertile regions. Even the thievish and lawless 
hordes, which then abounded in the Pyrenean fastnesses, 
were scarcely formidable to a traveller, whose only riches 
were dried plants, and whose ostensible provision for his 
journey consisted of a little black bread, in which he con¬ 
cealed his money. The intermediate winters between his 
several visits to Dauphiny, Savoy, Catalonia, the Pyrenees, 
&c., were spent in the university of Montpellier, where he 
first entered in 1679; but he is said to have taken his doc¬ 
tor’s degree at Orange. At Montpellier he enjoyed the 
intimacy of Magnol. 
The merits of Tournefort, as a botanist, soon became 
conspicuous at Paris, and, aided by a fortunate introduc¬ 
tion, procured him the especial favour of professor Fagon, 
then chief physician to the queen, who resigned in his fa¬ 
vour the superintendance of the royal garden. In this 
school he was soon attended by a numerous throng of stu¬ 
dents, eager to follow him in his excursions round Paris, and 
to profit by his practical remarks. 
The subject of our memoir now became desirous of further 
examining the productions of other countries than his own, 
in their native situations. For this purpose he travelled, in 
1688, to Spain and Portugal, afterwards into Holland and 
England; enriching by these means his own collection of 
dried plants, as well as the living collections of the Parisian 
garden, and procuring the acquaintance and correspondence 
of all the most eminent cultivators of the science in which 
he excelled. 
The studies and labours of Tournefort were facilitated and 
encouraged by a royal pension, which could certainly not 
come under the opprobrious denomination of a sinecure. 
In 1692, he became a member of the Academy of Sciences, 
and in 1694 published in French his “ Elemens de Botan- 
ique,” making three octavo volumes, dedicated to Louis 
XIV.—This was but a prelude to his immortal work, the 
“ Institutiones Rei Herbariaa,” of which the first edition, in 
three quarto volumes, with 476 plates, appeared in 1700. 
The second, which, with a reference to the “ Elements,” is 
called the third, was published by Anthony de Jussieu, at 
Lyons, in 1719, with the “ Corollarium,” composed of the 
author's Oriental discoveries. In 1698, when he was ad¬ 
mitted a member of the Medical Faculty at Paris, he pub¬ 
lished a little duodecimo volume, “ Histoire des Plantes qui 
naissent aux Environs de Paris,” afterwards translated by 
professor Martyn into English. The reputed virtues of the 
plants are subjoined to their synonyms and descriptions. 
Vol. XXIV. No. 1626. 
The arrangement is alphabetical, the style desultory, nor is 
this one of the best books of its kind. 
We know not at what period Tournefort received the 
order of St. Michael, but that he was decorated therewith 
appears by his portrait, published by Dr. Thornton, from 
an original picture; and the circumstance is alluded to by 
Haller, Bibl. Bot. v. 2, 3. 
At the earnest recommendation of his friend Fagon, Tour¬ 
nefort was dispatched, under royal patronage, on a voyage 
to the Levant, the avowed object of which was to investi¬ 
gate the plants of ancient writers, as well as to make new 
discoveries. He was accompanied by a German physician, 
named Andrew Gundelscheimer, and by Claude Aubriet, 
one of the most exquisite botanical painters that the world 
ever saw. These travellers left Paris on the 9lh of March, 
1700, and embarking at Marseilles the 23d of April, an¬ 
chored nine days afterwards in Crete. The investigation of 
the Archipelago, Greece, the shores of the Euxine, the coun¬ 
tries of Bithynia, Cappadocia, Iberia, Armenia, Georgia, 
Galatia, Lydia, &c., occupied two years, and our adventurers 
returned in safety to Marseilles, on the 3d of June, 1702. 
Tournefort’s account of this expedition, written in French, 
and published soon after his decease, is one of the most 
agreeable, intelligent, and valuable books of travels extant. 
The work is addressed, in the form of letters, to the comte 
de Pontchartrain, secretary of state. On arriving at Paris, 
it was his design to have turned to advantage the connec¬ 
tions and reputation he had acquired, by devoting himself 
to the practice of physic. His time, however, was inces¬ 
santly occupied; and the preparation of his “Voyage du 
Levant” for publication, which, considering the books neces¬ 
sary to be consulted, was no light or speedy task, led him 
too often to encroach on the night, after the superabundant 
labours of the day. His health became impaired, but this 
could not relax his ardour. His fate, however, was precipi¬ 
tated by the accident of a carriage in the street, which 
crushed his breast, and even threatened him with instant 
death, from which he was rescued by the exertions of a 
friend near at hand. He languished for a few months only 
after this event, and died December 28, 1708, in the fifty- 
third year of his age. We find no mention of his place of 
burial, nor of any monument erected to his memory. He 
was never married. He left his collection of plants to the 
king, who bestowed a pension of a thousand livres on his 
nephew, as an avowed return for this legacy, and a testi¬ 
mony of royal esteem for the deceased. Of Tournefort’s 
system of classification, we have given an account in the 
article Botany. 
TOURNEFORTIA [so named by Linnaeus, in memory 
of Joseph Pitton Tournefort, the famous author of an ele¬ 
gant arrangement of plants, under the title of Institutiones 
Rei Herbariae], in Botany, a genus of the class pentandria, 
order monogynia, natural order of asperifoliae, borragineae 
(Juss .)—Generic Character. Calyx: perianth five-parted, 
small; segments awl-shaped, permanent. Corolla one-pe- 
talled, funnel-form; tube cylindrical, globular at the base; 
border half-five-cleft, spreading; segments acuminate, hori¬ 
zontal, gibbous in the middle. Stamina: filaments five, 
awl-shaped, at the throat of the corolla. Anthers simple, 
in the throat, converging, acuminate. Pistil: germ globu¬ 
lar, superior. Style simple, length of the stamens, club- 
shaped. Stigma circumcised, entire. Pericarp: berry glo¬ 
bular, two-celled, perforated by two pores at top. Steds 
four, subovate, separated by pulp .—Essential Character. 
Berry two-celled, two-seeded, superior, perforated at top by 
two pores. 
]. Tournefortia serrata, or serrate-leaved tournefortia.— 
Leaves ovate, serrate; petioles spinescent; spikes terminat¬ 
ing, recurved.—This, and most of the other species, are 
natives of South America. 
2 . Tournefortia hirsutissima, or hairy tournefortia.—Leaves 
ovate-petioled, acuminate; stem hirsute; spikes branched, 
terminating; berries hirsute.—Native of the islands in the 
West Indies. 
3. Tournefortia volubilis, or climbing tournefortia.—Leaves 
O ovate, 
