Philippe Morat (born 19 January 1937, in

Saigon Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) ('','' TP.HCM; ), commonly known as Saigon (; ), is the most populous city in Vietnam with a population of around 14 million in 2025. The city's geography is defined by rivers and canals, of which the largest is Saigo ...

) is a researcher mainly in the field of tropical botany. He is a corresponding member of 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 ...

Biography

Agricultural engineer from the Ecole nationale supérieure agronomique de

Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

, he was admitted to the

Institut de recherche pour le développement The French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, or ''Institut de Recherche pour le Développement'' (IRD), is a French science and technology establishment under the joint supervision of the French Ministries of Ministry of ...

(IRD) in 1960 in the tropical botany section where he remained until 1986, successively in charge, master then research director during his assignments in

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

(12 years) and

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

(9 years). After obtaining a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

from the

University of Paris-Sud Paris-Sud University (), also known as the University of Paris — XI (or as the Orsay Faculty of Sciences, University of Paris before 1971), was a French research university distributed among several campuses in the southern suburbs of Paris, ...

in 1972 on the origin of the

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

s of south-western Madagascar,1973- ''Les savanes du Sud-Ouest de Madagascar''. Mémoires ORSTOM n° 68, 235 p. he turned his attention to

taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

Etude systématique et familles : Poaceae, Eriocaulaceae, Arecaceae, Orchidaceae Asclepiadaceae, Malvaceae, Polygalaceae, Oncothecaceae, Trimeniaceae. and

phytogeography Phytogeography (from Greek φυτόν, ''phytón'' = "plant" and γεωγραφία, ''geographía'' = "geography" meaning also distribution) or botanical geography is the branch of biogeography that is concerned with the geographic distribution ...

. Appointed Professor at the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. With 4.4 ...

and Director of the Phanerogamy Laboratory in 1986, he is also in charge of the National Herbarium. Correspondent of the French Academy of Sciences in 1999, section of Integrative Biology. Retired in 2006.

Scientific contributions

Highlighting of the

anthropic Anthropic PBC is an American artificial intelligence (AI) startup company founded in 2021. Anthropic has developed a family of large language models (LLMs) named Claude as a competitor to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. According to the ...

origin of the majority of the savannas of Madagascar. Bioclimatic synthesis of the Big Island. Inventories and taxonomic studies of tropical plant biodiversity on islands in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

(Madagascar,

Mascarene Islands The Mascarene Islands (, ) or Mascarenes or Mascarenhas Archipelago is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar consisting of islands belonging to the Republic of Mauritius as well as the French department of Réunion. Their na ...

Aldabra Aldabra, the world's second-largest coral atoll (the largest is Kiritimati), is located east of the continent of Africa. It is part of the Aldabra Group of islands in the Indian Ocean that are part of the Outer Islands (Seychelles), Outer Islands ...

, Farquhar) and the Southern Pacific (New Caledonia,

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...

French Polynesia French Polynesia ( ; ; ) is an overseas collectivity of France and its sole #Governance, overseas country. It comprises 121 geographically dispersed islands and atolls stretching over more than in the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean. The t ...

Wallis and Futuna Wallis and Futuna, officially the Territory of the Wallis and Futuna Islands (), is a French island territorial collectivity, collectivity in the Oceania, South Pacific, situated between Tuvalu to the northwest, Fiji to the southwest, Tonga t ...

). Development of an innovative methodology for the study of the structure and dynamism of their vegetation. Highlighting of their floristic affinities and the establishment of their vegetation and flora in relation to their geological history. Development of a GIS and an evolving taxonomic reference system in the form of a database that has been widely used to date. Vegetation map of New Caledonia.P. Morat, T. Jaffré, J.-M. Veillon & H.S. MacKee, « Les formations végétales in Atlas de la Nouvelle-Calédonie », ''ORSTOM'', 1981

Functions performed

* Administrator of the Museum of the National Park of

Guadeloupe Guadeloupe is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands—Basse-Terre Island, Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Guadeloupe, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galant ...

* Scientific adviser to the TAAF Museum (French Southern and Antarctic Lands), the DIRCEN (Direction des Centres d'Expérimentation Nucléaires), the Nancy Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. * Vice-President of the Council of International Organisation for Plant Information (IOPI) * Member of the Steering Committee of the Species Plantarum Programme: Flora of the world * Honorary Trustee of the

Missouri Botanical Garden The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located at 4344 Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropy, philanthropist Henry Shaw (philanthropist), Henry Shaw. I ...

* Deputy Editor of the "Biology" reports of the French Academy of sciences * Director of Flores: ** of New Caledonia ** of Madagascar and Comoros ** of

Gabon Gabon ( ; ), officially the Gabonese Republic (), is a country on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, on the equator, bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo to the east and south, and ...

** of

Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...

Laos Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...

and

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

Publications

* P. Morat et J.-M. Veillon. ''Contribution à la connaissance de la flore et de la végétation de Wallis, Futuna et Alofi,'' Bull. Mus. natn. Hist. nat Paris 1985, 4^e sér.,7,sect.B. Adansonia, 259-330 * (en) P. Morat''. Our knowledge of the flora of New Caledonia : endemism and diversity in relation to vegetation types and substrates.'' In the Terrestrial biota of New Caledonia. Biodiversity Letters London 1,1985 (3-4)72-81. * (en) P. Morat et P.P. Lowry II. ''Floristic richness in the Africa-Madagascar Region'' : ''a brief history and prospective'', Adansonia 1997, sér. 3, 19(1), 101-115.

Books

* P. Morat. ''Les savanes du Sud-Ouest de Madagascar''. Mémoires ORSTOM 1973-n° 68, 235 p. * P. Morat, J. Koechlin et J.-L. Guillaumet, ''Flore et Végétation de Madagascar'', Flora et Vegetatio Mundi. R. Tüxen. Ed. Cramer.1975, 687 p. * P. Morat, G. Aymonin et J.-C. Jolinon, ''L’Herbier du Monde. Cinq siècles d’aventures et de passions botaniques au Muséum national d’histoire naturelle'', Editions du Muséum / Les Arènes/ L’Iconoclaste, 2004, 240 p.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morat, Philippe 1937 births People from Ho Chi Minh City French biochemists Members of the French Academy of Sciences 20th-century French botanists Living people 21st-century French botanists