- Aimé Bonpland
Aimé Jacques Alexandre Bonpland (
22 August 1773 -4 May 1858 ) was a French explorer and botanist.Bonpland's real name was Goujaud, and he was born in
La Rochelle , a coastal city in France. After serving as a surgeon in the French army, and studying under J. N. Corvisart atParis , he accompaniedAlexander von Humboldt during five years of travel inMexico ,Colombia and the districts bordering on theOrinoco and Amazon rivers. In these explorations he collected and classified about 60 000plant s that were, until then, mostly unknown inEurope . He later described his finds in "Plantes equinoxiales" (Paris, 1808-1816). A semi-fictional account of these travels is to be found inDaniel Kehlmann 's "Die Vermessung der Welt" (also published in American English as "Measuring the World : A Novel", translated by Carol Brown Janeway).On returning to Paris he received a pension and the superintendence of the gardens at Malmaison, and published "Monographie des Melastomes" (1806), and "Description des plantes rares cultivées à Malmaison et à Navarre" (1813). In 1816 he set out, taking with him various European plants, for
Buenos Aires , where he was elected professor of natural history, an office which he soon left in order to explore centralSouth America . While journeying toBolivia he was arrested in 1821, by command ofJosé Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia , the dictator ofParaguay , who detained him until 1831.On regaining liberty he resided at San Borga in the province of
Corrientes ,Argentina until his removal in 1853 to Santa Ana, inMisiones , today a small town called "Bonpland" in his honor, close to Restauracion where he died.Bonpland Street in the ritzy
Buenos Aires neighborhood ofPalermo Hollywood lies among streets named afterCharles Darwin ,Robert FitzRoy andAlexander von Humboldt . Many animals and plants are also named in his honor, including the squid "Grimalditeuthis bonplandi " and the orchid "Ornithocephalus bonplandi ".The
lunar crater Bonpland is named after him.External links
* [http://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/bonpland-aime-jacques.html View biographical information in "Australian National Botanic Gardens"]
* [http://www.botanicus.org/creator.asp?creatorid=475 View biographical information on and digitized titles by Aimė Bonpland in "Botanicus.org"]References
*1911
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