Alire Raffeneau Delile (23 January 1778, in

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, ...

– 5 July 1850, in Montpellier) was a French botanist.

Biography

Delile studied botany with Jean Lemonnier, and was in the

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

medical school in 1796.

Egypt

Delile participated in

Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...

's Egypt Campaign where he described

Lotus Lotus may refer to: Plants *Lotus (plant), various botanical taxa commonly known as lotus, particularly: ** ''Lotus'' (genus), a genus of terrestrial plants in the family Fabaceae **Lotus flower, a symbolically important aquatic Asian plant also ...

and

Papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...

. Director of the

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo met ...

botanical garden, he wrote the

botanical Botany, also called plant science (or plant sciences), plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany ...

sections of ''Travel in Lower and Upper Egypt'' by

Dominique Vivant Dominique Vivant, Baron Denon (4 January 1747 – 27 April 1825) was a French artist, writer, diplomat, author, and archaeologist. Denon was a diplomat for France under Louis XV and Louis XVI. He was appointed as the first Director of the Louvre ...

. He made a cast of the

Rosetta Stone The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Ancient ...

which allowed the reproduction of its

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and

Demotic Demotic may refer to: * Demotic Greek, the modern vernacular form of the Greek language * Demotic (Egyptian), an ancient Egyptian script and version of the language * Chữ Nôm Chữ Nôm (, ; ) is a logographic writing system formerly used ...

inscriptions in his ''Description de l'Égypte''.

United States

In 1802, Delile was appointed French vice consul at

Wilmington, North Carolina Wilmington is a port city in and the county seat of New Hanover County in coastal southeastern North Carolina, United States. With a population of 115,451 at the 2020 census, it is the eighth most populous city in the state. Wilmington is t ...

, and also asked to form an herbarium of all American plants that could be naturalized in France. He sent to Paris several cases of seeds and grains, and discovered some new graminea and presented them to

Palisot de Beauvois Ambroise Marie François Joseph Palisot, Baron de Beauvois (27 July 1752, in Arras – 21 January 1820, in Paris) was a French naturalist and zoologist. Palisot collected insects in Oware, Benin, Saint Domingue, and the United States, from 17 ...

, who described them in his ''Agrostographie''. Raffeneau made extensive explorations through the neighboring states, and, resigning in 1805, began the study of

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, and Health promotion ...

in New York. During an epidemic of

scarlet fever Scarlet fever, also known as Scarlatina, is an infectious disease caused by ''Streptococcus pyogenes'' a Group A streptococcus (GAS). The infection is a type of Group A streptococcal infection (Group A strep). It most commonly affects child ...

he was active in visiting the tenements of the poor, and in 1807 he obtained the degree of

M.D. Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin ''Medicinae Doctor'') is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a professional degree. T ...

Return to France

He returned to France, and graduated as doctor in medicine from the

University of Paris The University of Paris (french: link=no, Université de Paris), Metonymy, metonymically known as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, active from 1150 to 1970, with the exception between 1793 and 1806 under the French Revo ...

in 1809. In 1819, he was appointed professor of natural history at the

University of Montpellier The University of Montpellier (french: Université de Montpellier) is a public research university located in Montpellier, in south-east of France. Established in 1220, the University of Montpellier is one of the oldest universities in the wor ...

, a post he retained until his death. In 1832, he was named director of the botanical garden in Montpellier. He reports planting two

Maclura ''Maclura'' is a genus of flowering plants in the mulberry family, Moraceae. It includes the inedible Osage orange, which is used as mosquito repellent and grown throughout the United States as a hedging plant. It is dioecious, with male and f ...

saplings which can still be found there, and he added many species to its

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (calle ...

. He named some 438 species. He specialized in

pteridophyte A pteridophyte is a vascular plant (with xylem and phloem) that disperses spores. Because pteridophytes produce neither flowers nor seeds, they are sometimes referred to as " cryptogams", meaning that their means of reproduction is hidden. Ferns, ...

mycology Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy and their use to humans, including as a source for tinder, traditional medicine, food, and entheogens, a ...

bryophyte The Bryophyta s.l. are a proposed taxonomic division containing three groups of non-vascular land plants ( embryophytes): the liverworts, hornworts and mosses. Bryophyta s.s. consists of the mosses only. They are characteristically limited ...

s and

spermatophyte A spermatophyte (; ), also known as phanerogam (taxon Phanerogamae) or phaenogam (taxon Phaenogamae), is any plant that produces seeds, hence the alternative name seed plant. Spermatophytes are a subset of the embryophytes or land plants. They inc ...

s. In 1853, botanist

Godr. Dominique Alexandre Godron (25 March 1807 - 16 August 1880) was a French physician, botanist, geologist and speleologist born in the town of Hayange, in the ''département'' Moselle. Godron studied medicine at the University of Strasbourg, and d ...

published '' Raffenaldia'', a genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. They include all forbs (flowering plants without a woody stem), grasses and grass-like plants, a vast majority of ...

s from Algeria and Morocco, belonging to the family

Brassicaceae Brassicaceae () or (the older) Cruciferae () is a medium-sized and economically important family of flowering plants commonly known as the mustards, the crucifers, or the cabbage family. Most are herbaceous plants, while some are shrubs. The l ...

. It was named in Alire Raffeneau Delile's honour.

Works

His works include (besides those already cited): *''Sur les effets d'un poison de Java appelé l'upas tieuté, et sur les differentes espèces de strychnos'' (Paris, 1809) *''Mémoire sur quelques espèces de graminées propres à la Caroline du Nord'' (Versailles, 1815) *''Centurie des plantes de l'Amérique du Nord'' (Montpellier, 1820) *''Flore d'Égypte'' (5 vols., Paris, 1824) *''Centurie des plantes d'Afrique'' (Paris, 1827) *''De la culture de la patate douce, du crambe maritima et de l'oxalis crenata'' (Montpellier, 1836)

References

* French Wikipedia—Alire Raffeneau-Delile {{DEFAULTSORT:Delile, Alire Raffeneau French taxonomists 1778 births 1850 deaths Commission des Sciences et des Arts members 19th-century French diplomats 19th-century French physicians 19th-century French botanists People from Versailles