JOSEPH PITTON DE

See also:

• JOSEPH PITTON DE TOURNEFORT (1656-1708)

TOURNEFORT (1656-1708)  , French botanist, was born at Aix, in Provence, on the 5th of June 1656 . He studied in the convent of the Jesuits at Aix, and was destined for the Church, but the death of his father left him free to follow his botanical inclinations . After two years' collecting, he studied medicine at Montpellier, but was appointed professor of botany at the Jardin des Plantes in 1683 . By the king's order he travelled through western Europe, where he made extensive collections, and subsequently spent three years in Greece and Asia Minor (1700-1702) . Of this journey a description in a series of letters was posthumously published in 3 vols . (Relation d'un voyage du Levant, Lyons, 1717) . His principal work is entitled Institutiones rei herbariae (3 vols . Paris, 1700), and upon this rests chiefly his claims to remembrance as one of the most eminent of the systematic botanists who prepared the way for Linnaeus . He died on the 28th of December 1708 .