Louis Édouard Bureau

Louis Édouard Bureau (25 May 1830 in Nantes – 14 December 1918 in Paris) was a French physician and botanist.

Bureau began his medical studies in Nantes in 1848, where he held the post of director of the Muséum de Nantes (Nantes Museum). He completed his medical degree in Paris in 1852. In 1872 he obtained a post as a naturalist assistant at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (French National Natural History Museum) in the laboratory of Adolphe Brongniart, where he replaced Edmond Tulasne. In 1874 he received appointment to the new botany post dealing with classification. Beginning in 1875, he was a director of the herbariums at the museum. He was a professor at the museum from 1874 until he retired in 1905. He was succeeded by Paul Henri Lecomte.

Bureau was one of the founders of the "Société entomologique de France" ("French Entomological Society") and was the chairman in 1875, 1883, 1902 and 1905. In 1895 he was elected to the French Academy of Medicine. From 1895 to 1917, he was a member of the "Comité travaux of the historiques et scientifiques" ("French Committee for Historical and Scientific Endeavors").

Bureau was a significant contributor to Henri Ernest Baillon’s "Dictionnaire de Botanique" ("Botanical Dictionary"). He wrote the chapters on the Moraceae, including the Artocarpeae (the breadfruit tribe), for volume XVII (1873) of Augustin Pyramus de Candolle’s "Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis" ("A preliminary natural system for the plant kingdom"). Together with Karl Moritz Schumann, he wrote the Bignoniaceae section of Volume VIII of Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius’s " Flora brasiliensis" (Flora of Brazil).

Bureau was particularly interested in paleobotany and significantly increased the museum's paleontological holdings. From 1910–1914 he published a two-volume work on the fossils of the Loire basin, [Bureau, Louis Édouard (1910–1914) "Bassin houiller de la Basse-Loire" Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, [http://worldcat.org/oclc/9940546 OCLC 9940546] ] and in 1911, he published a further work specifically on the Devonian there. [basin [Bureau, Louis Édouard (1911) "Sur la flore dévonienne du bassin de la Basse-Loire" "Bull Soc.Sci.Nat.Ouest" (third series) 1: pp. 1-42 ]

The species "Rhododendron bureavii," belonging to the taxonomically complex group of elepidote (nonscaly) rhododendrons, was named in his honor and was based upon specimens from China in his private collection.

The standard author abbreviation Bureau is used to indicate Bureau when citing a botanical name.

Selected publications

* "Monographie des Bignoniacées: ou histoire générale et particulière des plantes qui composent cet ordre naturel," 1864 [http://worldcat.org/oclc/5932136 OCLC 5932136]
* with Adrien René Franchet (1834–1900) "Plantes nouvelles du Thibet et de la Chine occidentale : recueillies pendant le voyage de M. Bonvalot et du Prince Henri d'Orléans en 1890", 1891 [http://worldcat.org/oclc/25054778 OCLC 25054778] .
*"De la famille des Loganiacées et des plantes qu'elle fournít a la médecine." 1856.
*"Notice sur les travaux scientifiques de M.É. Bureau." 1901, 1864.
*"Révision du genre Catalpa." 1894.
*"Bassin houiller de la basse Loire." 1910–1914, Etudes des gîtes minéraux de la France
*"Notice sur la géologie de la Loire-Inférieure… avec listes des végétaux fossiles" published in "Nantes et la Loire inférieure, III" Imprimerie Grimaud, Nantes (1900), pp. 99–522.

Notes

References

* Jaussaud, Philippe and Brygoo, Édouard-Raoul (2004) "Du Jardin au Muséum en 516 Biographies" Publications scientifiques du Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris, ISBN 2-85653-565-8

External links

* [http://www.museum.nantes.fr/pages/03-apercu/paleobota/edouardbureau.htm Paleobotany Muséum de Nantes] in French
* [http://www.museum.nantes.fr/pages/08-documentation/expos/Bureau.htm Fossil plants Muséum de Nantes] in French