Gaston Bonnier

Gaston Eugène Marie Bonnier
Gaston Bonnier
Born	(1853-04-09)9 April 1853 Paris, France
Died	2 January 1922(1922-01-02) (aged 68)
Nationality	French
Alma mater	École Normale Supérieure, Uppsala University
Known for	Experimental plant ecology, founding the Revue Générale de Botanique, floras of France
Scientific career
Fields	Botany, Plant Ecology
Doctoral students	Henri Devaux Maurice Bouly de Lesdain Paul Becquerel Louis Emberger Paul Jaccard Albert Maige

Gaston Eugène Marie Bonnier (French pronunciation: [ɡastɔ̃ øʒɛn maʁi bɔnje]; 9 April 1853 – 2 January 1922) was a French botanist and plant ecologist.[1] The standard author abbreviation Bonnier is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[2]

Biography

Bonnier first studied at École Normale Supérieure in Paris from 1873 to 1876. Together with Charles Flahault, he studied at Uppsala University in 1878. They published two articles about their impressions:

• Observations sur la flore cryptogamique de la Scandinavie
• Sur la distribution des végétaux dans la region moyenne de la presqu’ile Scandinave (both with Charles Flahault 1879)

He became assistant professor, later full professor, of botany at Sorbonne in 1887 and, in addition, he founded a Plant Biological Laboratory in Fontainebleau in 1889. The same year, he co-founded the scientific journal Revue Générale de Botanique, which he edited until 1922. He was an early exponent of experimental plant ecology. He transplanted alpine plants between the Alps and Pyrenees and the research garden in Fontainebleau.[3][4][5][6] The results were published in:

• Cultures expérimentales dans les Alpes et les Pyrénées. Revue Générale de Botanique 2 (1890): 513–546.
• Les plantes arctiques comparées aux mêmes espèces des Alpes et des Pyrénées (1894).
• Nouvelles observations sur les cultures expérimentales à diverses altitudes et cultures par semis. Revue Générale de Botanique 22 (1920): 305–326.

He authored several floras of France, such as

• Nouvelle flore du Nord de la France et de la Belgique pour la détermination facile des plantes sans mots techniques. Vol. I. Tableaux synoptiques des plantes vasculaires de la flore de la France. P. Dupont, Paris, 1894 (With Georges de Layens (1834–1897)).
  • Vol. II. Nouvelle Flore des mousses et des hépatiques with Charles Isidore Douin (1858–1944). P. Dupont, Paris, 1895.
  • Vol. III. Nouvelle Flore des champignons with Julien Noël Costantin (1857–1936) and Léon Jean Marie Dufour (1862–1942). P. Dupont, Paris, 1895.
• Flore complète illustrée de France, Suisse et Belgique. (1911).

Notable students of Gaston Bonnier include Henri Devaux, Maurice Bouly de Lesdain,[7] Paul Becquerel, Louis Emberger, Paul Jaccard, and Albert Maige among others.

References

1. "Gaston Bonnier". www.biologie-seite.de (in German). Retrieved 2021-04-21.
2. International Plant Names Index.   Bonnier.
3. Coulter, M. C. (1923). "Gaston Bonnier". Botanical Gazette. 76 (4): 425–426. doi:10.1086/333274. ISSN 0006-8071. S2CID 224833700.
4. Bournerias, Marcel (1990). "Gaston Bonnier, éminent pédagogue et botaniste de terrain". Bulletin de la Société Botanique de France. Lettres Botaniques (in French). 137 (2–3): 93–105. Bibcode:1990BSBFL.137...93B. doi:10.1080/01811797.1990.10824870. ISSN 0181-1797.
5. "Prof. Gaston Bonnier". Nature. 111 (2782): 264–265. 1923. Bibcode:1923Natur.111..264.. doi:10.1038/111264b0. ISSN 0028-0836.
6. Smith, Gideon F.; Wolff, Ernst; Thoumin, Luce (2020). "The taxonomy and nomenclature of Kalanchoe gastonis-bonnieri Raym.-Hamet & H.Perrier (Crassulaceae subfam. Kalanchooideae), with biographical notes on Gaston Eugène Marie Bonnier (1853–1922)". Bradleya. 2020 (38): 94. doi:10.25223/brad.n38.2020.a13. ISSN 0265-086X. S2CID 220072094.
7. Des Abbayes, H. (1966). "Le Dr Maurice Bouly de Lesdain (1869–1965". Revue bryologique et lichénologique (in French). 34 (1–2): 370–375.