Michel Charles Durieu de Maisonneuve, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetMichel Charles Durieu de Maisonneuve
French botanist
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Lot-et-Garonne, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France
About Michel Charles Durieu de Maisonneuve
- Michel Charles Durieu de Maisonneuve (7 December 1796 – 20 February 1878) was a French soldier and botanist who was a native of Saint-Eutrope-de-Born in the department of Lot-et-Garonne. He studied at École Militaire de Brienne, and later at the military school of Saint-Cyr, where he received the rank of sub-lieutenant.
- He entered military service in 1813, and would be associated with the French army until 1848.
- He participated in the Battle of Trocadero at Cadiz, and was involved in the 1843 Battle of Smala against the forces of Abd-El-Kader (1808–1883).
- In the mid-1820s Durieu de Maisonneuve developed an interest in natural history and botany by studying fresh water algae.
- He participated in the Morea expedition to Greece with naturalist Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent (1778–1846), and in 1840-44 was a member of a committee for scientific exploration of Algeria.
- During his years in the military he also performed botanical investigations in France, Spain (Asturias) and northern Portugal. Durieu de Maisonneuve studied cryptogam species with Bory de Saint-Vincent, Camille Montagne (1784–1866), Joseph-Henri Léveillé (1796–1870), and the brothers Charles (1817–1884) and Louis René Tulasne (1815–1885).
- He was particularly interested in quillworts, of which, he described several new species.
- He also performed research of spermatophytes with Ernest Cosson (1819–1889), who was an authority of North African flora.
- In 1858 he succeeded Jean François Laterrade (1784–1858) as director of the botanical garden at Bordeaux, and from 1867 to 1877, was a professor of botany in Bordeaux.
- The botanical genus Durieua was named after him by Pierre Edmond Boissier and Georges François Reuter.
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