Dr. Édouard Marie Heckel (24 March 1843 – 20 January 1916) was a French botanist and medical doctor, and director of the Jardin botanique E.M. Heckel in Marseille. Heckel was born in

Toulon Toulon (, , ; , , ) is a city in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France. Located on the French Riviera and the historical Provence, it is the prefecture of the Var (department), Var department. The Commune of Toulon h ...

, studied pharmacy and medicine, and in 1861 visited the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. In 1875, he was appointed professor in the faculty of sciences at

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

, and in 1877 professor of medicine. He became a professor of natural history in Nancy in 1878, and is known for his studies of tropical plants and their use as medicinal plants and oilseeds. From 1885, Heckel turned to the study of tropical plants such as medicinal or industrial oilseeds. In 1893 he founded the Colonial Institute and Museum of Marseille and creates a tropical pathology professorship at the medical school. In 1887, he won the ''Prix Barbier'' from the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

. In 1896, French botanist

Jean Baptiste Louis Pierre Jean Baptiste Louis Pierre (23 October 1833 – 30 October 1905), also known as J. B. Louis Pierre, was a French Botany, botanist known for his Asian studies. Early life Pierre was born in Saint-André, Réunion, Saint-André, Réunion, and ...

named a genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

s (belonging to the family

Meliaceae Meliaceae, the mahogany family, is a flowering plant family of mostly trees and shrubs (and a few herbaceous plants, mangroves) in the order Sapindales. They are characterised by alternate, usually pinnate leaves without stipules, and by syncarp ...

) from western central

Tropical Africa The Afrotropical realm is one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms. It includes Sub-Saharan Africa, the southern Arabian Peninsula, the island of Madagascar, and the islands of the western Indian Ocean. It was formerly known as the Ethiopi ...

, '' Heckeldora'' in his honour. In 1901, he launched the idea of creating an exhibition devoted exclusively to French colonies. This project would be supported by Jules Charles-Roux, who would become the Commissioner General while Heckel was his deputy. The exhibition was held at Parc Chanot in Marseille and was a great success from its opening on 14 April 1906 to its closure on 18 November 1906.

References

* "Edouard-Marie Heckel", in the ''New Dictionary of Scientific Biography'', Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008. * French Wikipedia entry {{DEFAULTSORT:Heckel, Edouard Marie 20th-century French botanists 1843 births 1916 deaths 19th-century French botanists 19th-century French physicians