Julien Joseph Vesque (8 April 1848, in

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

– 25 July 1895, in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

), was a French naturalist, noted for his work on the agricultural and horticultural benefits deriving from the study of plant physiology. He was the father of Marthe and Juliette, the celebrated circus aficionados known as the Vesque Sisters. Vesque received his early education at the ''Athénée grand-ducal'', moved to Paris in 1871, living and working there for the rest of his life. He held the position of professor from 1880 at the ''

Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History ( ; abbr. MNHN) is the national natural history museum of France and a of higher education part of Sorbonne University. The main museum, with four galleries, is located in Paris, France, within the Ja ...

'' and from 1883 he was professor at the '' Paris Agricultural Institute'', teaching at the Sorbonne during the same period. His main area of study was water transportation in plants. In 1880 he stated that the movement of water in plants is due to both transpiration and

root pressure Root pressure is the transverse osmotic pressure within the cells of a root system that causes sap to rise through a plant stem to the leaves. Root pressure occurs in the xylem of some vascular plants when the soil moisture level is high either ...

. He was also interested in the effect of temperature on root absorption of water from the soil. Vesque proved that water moved through the cavities of the vessels and not along the walls of plant vessels. During his research he invented laboratory instruments for studying transpiration in plants. He is denoted by the author abbreviation Vesque when citing a

botanical name A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the ''International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants'' (ICN) and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar or cultivar group, Group epithets must conform t ...

Bibliography

*''L’écorce des plantes dicotylédonées'' (1875) *''Theses Presentees a la Faculte Des Sciences de Paris Pour Obtenir Le Grade de Docteur Es Sciences Naturelles'' (1876) *''Notice Sur Les Travaux Scientifiques'' (1883) *''Traité de botanique agricole et industrielle'' J.-B. Baillière et fils (1885)
''Mémoire Sur L'anatomie Comparée De L'écorce'' online

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vesque, Julien Joseph French naturalists 19th-century French botanists 1848 births 1895 deaths Alumni of the Athénée de Luxembourg