Buste du botaniste Pierre Cusson au jardin des plantes de Montpellier

Pierre Cusson (1727–1783),

anglicised Anglicisation or anglicization is a form of cultural assimilation whereby something non-English becomes assimilated into or influenced by the culture of England. It can be sociocultural, in which a non-English place adopts the English language ...

as Peter Cusson, was a French botanist who specialised in

Umbelliferae Apiaceae () or Umbelliferae is a family of mostly aromatic flowering plants named after the type genus '' Apium,'' and commonly known as the celery, carrot, or parsley family, or simply as umbellifers. It is the 16th-largest family of flowering ...

. As a young man, he travelled through

Majorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest of the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain, and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, seventh largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. The capital of the island, Palma, Majorca, Palma, i ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

and the

Pyrenees The Pyrenees are a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. They extend nearly from their union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast, reaching a maximum elevation of at the peak of Aneto. ...

, building up an excellent specimen collection of the flora of those regions. Shortly after his return to his home in

Montpellier Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...

, an elderly female relative with whom he lived cleaned his study in his absence, discarding his entire collection. In 1967, botanist John Hutchinson published ''

Neocussonia ''Neocussonia'' is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Araliaceae. Its native range is Tanzania to s. Africa and Madagascar. It is also found in the Cape Provinces, KwaZulu-Natal, the Northern Provinces (regions of South Africa), ...

'', 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 from southern Africa, belonging to the family

Araliaceae The Araliaceae are a family of flowering plants composed of about 43 genera and around 1500 species consisting of primarily woody plants and some herbaceous plants commonly called the ginseng family. The morphology of Araliaceae varies widely ...

and named in Pierre Cusson's honour.

References

1727 births 1783 deaths 18th-century French botanists {{france-botanist-stub