Suzanne Jovet-Ast (1914–2006) was a French

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 ...

, who worked principally at the

National Museum of Natural History, France 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 ...

Life

Suzanne Ast was born 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 ...

, France, on 8 February 1914. She received her

Baccalauréat The ''baccalauréat'' (; ), often known in France colloquially as the ''bac'', is a French national academic qualification that students can obtain at the completion of their secondary education (at the end of the ''lycée'') by meeting certain ...

(1932) from

Lycée Voltaire (Paris) The Lycée Voltaire is a secondary school in Paris, France, established in 1890. History The Lycée Voltaire was the first ''lycée'' in the east of Paris, and was intended to supplement classical humanities with practical and scientific knowledg ...

. In 1942, she was a preparer in the cryptogam ecology laboratory under the direction of Pierre Allorge. In 1943, she defended her doctoral thesis entitled ''Research on the Annonaceae of Indochina: leaf anatomy, geographical distribution,'' and she obtained her doctorate (1943) while working 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 ...

. At the museum she met the French botanist Paul Jovet and they married In 1939.

Work

In 1945, she became assistant to the chair of Cryptogamy. The French Botanical Society awarded her the Coincy Prize in 1948. In 1957, Suzanne Jovet-Ast was deputy director at the chair of Cryptogamy where she succeeded Robert Lami. In 1975, she took over from

Roger Heim Roger Heim (February 12, 1900 – September 17, 1979) was a French botanist specialising in mycology and tropical phytopathology. He was known for his studies describing the anatomy of the mushroom hymenium, the systematics and phylogeny of highe ...

as head of the Cryptogamy laboratory, becoming the first (and for a long time the only) female professor-administrator of the Museum, a position she held until her retirement. She served as Cryptogamy Chair of the National Museum of Natural History. Together with Hélène Bischler-Causse she co-founded the Association des Amis des Cryptogames in 1975. In her early work she studied the flowering plant family

Annonaceae The Annonaceae are a Family (biology), family of flowering plants consisting of trees, shrubs, or rarely lianas commonly known as the custard apple family or soursop family. With 108 accepted genera and about 2400 known species, it is the largest ...

, while the majority of her professional career was focused on

Bryophyte Bryophytes () are a group of embryophyte, land plants (embryophytes), sometimes treated as a taxonomic Division (taxonomy), division referred to as Bryophyta ''Sensu#Common qualifiers, sensu lato'', that contains three groups of non-vascular pla ...

s. In 1938, she wrote the chapter on Annonaceae for the ''General Flora of Indochina'' by

François Gagnepain François Gagnepain (23 September 1866 – 25 January 1952) was a French botanist. The standard botanical author abbreviation Gagnep. is applied to plants described by Gagnepain. With Achille Eugène Finet, he named a number of species with ...

Research interests

In bryology, she studied liverworts, particularly those from tropical and then Mediterranean regions. In the 1960s,

Hélène Bischler Hélène Bischler-Causse (January 3, 1932, in Bern – February 12, 2005, in Paris) was a French botanist and bryologist, best known for her research and description of neotropical liverworts, the Marchantiales genera, and plagiochasma. She was ...

and Jovet-Ast studied liverworts in the Mediterranean basin and arid and semi-arid zones in the field, which gave rise to numerous publications and applications in biochemistry and pharmacy. She retired in 1982 but continued collecting and working until her death on 22 February 2006 in

Biarritz Biarritz ( , , , ; also spelled ; ) is a city on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the French Basque Country in southwestern France. It is located from the border with Spain. It is a luxu ...

, France.

Legacy

She is the authority for at least 35

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

using the name Ast including: and 25 using the name Jovet-Ast including:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jovet-Ast, Suzanne 20th-century French botanists French bryologists 1914 births 2006 deaths 20th-century French women scientists Scientists from Paris French women botanists