Jacques Philippe Martin Cels, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetJacques Philippe Martin Cels
French horticulturalist (1740–1806)
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Versailles, Île-de-France, France
About Jacques Philippe Martin Cels
- Jacques Philippe Martin Cels (June 15, 1740 – May 15, 1806) was a French botanist specializing in horticulture. Cels was born in Versailles.
- He was a duty collector at the gates of Paris.
- Ruined when the French Revolution abolished his position, he started a botanical garden in which he cultivated foreign plants for sale, contributing to the growing public appetite for exotic flowers.
- He received and acclimatized numerous North American plants brought back by André Michaux and Louis-Augustin Bosc d'Antic.
- He strove to introduce many exotic species into France.
- He was made a member of the rural husbandry division of the French Academy of Sciences in 1795 and a member of the Académie d'Agriculture.
- He published instructional material in the various branches of his science.
- The species in his garden were described by the botanist Étienne Pierre Ventenat (1757–1808) and illustrated by Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840) in Description des plantes nouvelles et peu connues, cultivées dans le jardin de J.-M.
- Cels, published in Paris in 1799.
- A second illustrated work with illustrations by a "student of Redouté", Pancrace Bessa, appeared in 1803, Choix de plantes :dont la plupart sont cultivées dans le jardin de Cels, accessible at version numérique sur Botanicus. Cels died in Montrouge in 1806.
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