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Charles Plumier (20 April 1646 – 20 November 1704) was a French botanist, after whom the Frangipani genus ''Plumeria'' is named. Plumier is considered one of the most important of the botanical explorers of his time. He made three botanizing expeditions to the West Indies, which resulted in a massive work ''Nova Plantarum Americanarum Genera'' (1703–04) and was appointed botanist to king Louis XIV of France. ==Biography== Born in Marseille, at the age of sixteen he entered the religious order of the Minims. He devoted himself to the study of mathematics and physics, made physical instruments, and was an excellent draughtsman, painter, and turner. On being sent to the French monastery of Trinità dei Monti at Rome, Plumier studied botany under two members of the order, and especially under the Cistercian botanist, Paolo Boccone. After his return to France, he became a pupil of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, whom he accompanied on botanical expeditions. He also explored the coasts of Provence and Languedoc. His work began in 1689, when, by order of the government, he accompanied the collector Joseph Donat Surian to the French Antilles, as Surian's illustrator and writer. They remained a year and a half.〔Ronald H. Petersen, ''New World Botany: Columbus to Darwin'' (2001:155).〕 As this first journey, written up by Plumier as ''Description des Plantes d'Amérique'' (1693), proved very successful, Plumier was appointed royal botanist. In 1693, by command of Louis XIV of France, he made his second journey, and in 1695 his third journey to the Antilles. While in the West Indies, he was assisted by the Dominican botanist Jean-Baptiste Labat. The material gathered was prodigious: besides the ''Nova Plantarum Americanarum Genera'' it filled the volumes of Plumier's ''Filicetum Americanum'' (1703) and several shorter pieces for the ''Journal des Savants'' and the ''Memoires de Trévoux''.〔Petersen 2001:155.〕 In 1704, with his ''Traité des Fougères de l'Amérique'' in the press and about to start on his fourth journey, intending to visit the home of the true cinchona tree in Peru, he was taken ill with pleurisy and died at Puerto de Santa Maria near Cadiz. At his death Plumier left thirty-one manuscript volumes containing notes and descriptions, and about 6,000 drawings, 4,000 of which were of plants, while the remainder reproduced American animals of nearly all classes, especially birds and fishes.〔Pietsch, T. W. 2001. Charles Plumier (1646–1704) and his drawings of French and American fishes. ''Arch. Nat. Hist''., 28(1):1–57.〕 The botanist Herman Boerhaave had 508 of these drawings copied at Paris; these were published later in a ''hommage'' by Burmann, Professor of Botany at Amsterdam, under the title: "Plantarum americanarum, quas olim Carolus Plumerius botanicorum princeps detexit", fasc. I-X (Amsterdam, 1755–1760), containing 262 plates.〔''Journal des Savants'', May 1756:314, advertises the first installment.〕 Plumier also wrote treatises for the ''Journal des Savants'' and for the ''Mémoires de Trévoux''. Through his observations in Martinique, Plumier proved that the cochineal belongs to the animal kingdom and should be classed among the insects. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Charles Plumier」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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