2021-04-07 Wed

Michel Adanson was a French botanist who devised a natural system of classification and nomenclature of plants, based on all their physical characteristics, with an emphasis on families. Adanson was born at Aix-en-Provence. His family moved to Paris in 1730.

In 1749 Adanson left for Senegal to spend four years as an employee with the Compagnie des Indes, a trading company. He returned with a large collection of plant specimens, some of which became part of the French royal collection under the supervision of the naturalist Georges Buffon; most of them now belong to the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. He published Histoire Naturelle du Senegal (1757), describing the flora of Senegal, and a survey of molluscs.

Adanson made a serious attempt to classify fungi based on their fruit body complexity. He was the first botanist to classify lichens with fungi. He was honoured on a commemorative stamp issued by Union Des Comoros postal department in 2008. The stamp depicts his portrait in the foreground and fungi mushrooms in the background.

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