Swiss Botanist
1778-1841

Augustin de Candolle was a Swiss botanist who advanced significant ideas concerning the classification of plants and developed a taxonomic scheme that provided the foundation for much work in taxonomy up to the present.

As did most learned men of science in his day, Candolle trained in medicine, earning a medical degree from the University of Paris in 1804. During this time, he became friends with several other scientific luminaries working in Paris, including the evolutionary theorist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) and the paleontologist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Candolle became an assistant to Cuvier for a time and helped to revise Lamarck's treatise on French flora.

By this time, Candolle had become professionally interested in botany, and in 1806 obtained a commission to conduct a botanical and agricultural survey of France, an endeavor conducted over the next six years. In 1808 he was appointed professor of...