This book, written by the botanists of the Muséum, recounts the adventure of the Herbarium from the King's Cabinet in 1635 to its recent renovation, the voyage of plants across the oceans, their uses, classification systems, the introduction and disappearance of species.
It features portraits of the...
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This book, written by the botanists of the Muséum, recounts the adventure of the Herbarium from the King's Cabinet in 1635 to its recent renovation, the voyage of plants across the oceans, their uses, classification systems, the introduction and disappearance of species.
It features portraits of the great botanists who made up the collection - Tournefort, the Jussieu family, Humboldt and Bonpland, etc. - as well as a commented selection of over eighty plates, some of the finest in the collection. Visitors can admire the first sample of Bougainvillea, brought back from Brazil by Commerson, the wreaths of flowers discovered in the sarcophagus of Ramses II, the different species of wheat collected by Adanson, or Théodore Monod's desert flowers.
Dried, folded, labeled and annotated over time, the plants preserved in the Herbarium are very much alive. Through this extraordinary overview of the variety and beauty of the world's flora, this book raises our awareness of the challenges of biodiversity.
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