Luigi Aloysius Colla (30 April 1766 – 23 December 1848) was an Italian

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was a member of the Provisional Government of

Savoy Savoy (; )  is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps. Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south and west and to the Aosta Vall ...

from December 12, 1798, to April 2, 1799, taking his turn as chairman of the government in rotation for a ten-day term. In 1820 Colla described two species, ''

Musa balbisiana ''Musa balbisiana'', also known simply as plantain, is a wild-type species of banana. It is one of the ancestors of modern cultivated bananas, along with '' Musa acuminata''. Description It grows lush leaves in clumps with a more upright habit ...

'' and ''

Musa acuminata ''Musa acuminata'' is a species of banana native to South Asia, Southern Asia, its range comprising the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Many of the modern edible dessert bananas are derived from this species, although some are hybrids wi ...

'', that are the basis for almost all cultivated

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

s. Colla was a member of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.

Bibliography

* ''L'antolegista botanico'' - Turin - Volume 1, Volume 5, Volume 6 * ''Memoria sul genere Musa e monografia del medesimo'' - Turin * ''Observations sur le Limodorum purpureum de M. de Lamarck et création d'un nouveau genre dans la famille des Orchidées'' - Paris : Imprimerie Lebel * ''Hortus Ripulensis seu enumeratio plantarum quae Ripulis coluntur'' - Ed. Augustae Taurinorum * ''Mémoire sur le Melanopsidium Nigrum des jardiniers, et formation d'un genre nouveau dans la famille des rubiacées'' (1825) * ''Illustrationes et icones rariorum stirpium quae in ejus horto Ripulis florebant, anno 1826, addita ad hortum Ripulensem appendice III'' (1826) * avec Carlo Giuseppe Bertero - ''Plantae rariores in regionibus chilensibus'' - Deux tomes - Ex regia typographia (1832–1833) * ''Herbarium Pedemontanum juxta Methodum Naturalem Dispositum Additis'' - Ed. Augustae Taurinorum - Tome 1 (1833), Tome 2 (1834), Tome 3 (1834), Tome 4, Tome 6 (1836), Tome 7, Tome 8 * ''Osservazioni sovra una notizia pubblicata nel Messaggiere del 17 agosto 1842, num. 35 dal sig. Paolo Emilio Colombo circa l'Elephantusia macrocarpa del Willd'' (1842) * ''Observations sur la famille des rutacées : sur le genre Correa et formation du nouveau genre Antommarchia'' (1843) * ''Camelliografia ossia tentavio di una nuova disposizione naturale delle varietà della Camellia del Giappone'' - Turin

Notes

References

Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names
- retrieved June 6, 2006 {{DEFAULTSORT:Colla, Luigi Aloysius 19th-century Italian botanists 1766 births 1848 deaths Scientists from the Kingdom of Sardinia 18th-century Italian botanists