French soldier and plant collector Charles Durieu du Maisonneuve took the opportunity to collect plants while on military missions and worked particularly on the flora of France and Algeria. Later to direct the botanic garden of Bordeaux, he was born in Saint-Eutrope-de-Born in the department of Lot-et-Garonne and began his studies in a military school. In 1814 he entered the specialist military school of Saint-Cyr to train as a lieutenant with the aim of working in national defence. In 1823, however, he was sent to Spain to participate in the Battle of Trocadero, besieging the fort and entering Cadiz with the French troops.
At this time Durieu did not seem to have an interest in botany or the natural sciences. Later, in 1825, he began to observe fresh water algae and his passion for the study of plants developed. Two years later while garrisoned in Paris he met the botanist Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent whom he befriended and who, in 1830, was assigned as a botanist on the scientific section of the Morea Expedition. This mission was primarily a military affair to intervene in the revolutions in the Peloponnese, and in this capacity Durieu was involved as well.
In 1835 he returned to Spain, this time to study its flora and explored Asturias collecting many plants, although he did not study them himself and instead sent his specimens to others for identification. His cryptogams went to Camille Montagne and the phanerogams, Jacques Gray. By 1840 Durieu was based in Algeria as an army captain and also as a member of the commission for the scientific exploration of the country, this commission was headed by his friend, Bory Saint-Vincent. Between 1839 and 1841 Durieu alternated between scientific and military missions and after the war ended he continued to botanise in the region, not leaving Algeria until 1845. Between 1840 and 1842 he published a series of accounts of this expedition entitled Exploration scientifique de l'Algérie.
On his return Durieu settled in Paris in order to organise and write up the results of his botanical exploration, again sending specimens to many experts for identification while continuing to collect plants in the greater Paris region. In 1853 he retired from all his duties as captain and moved to Bordeaux, where he was named professor of botany at the municipal botanic garden. In this role he moved the garden from the suburbs into the centre of the city and began to cultivate many North African species which he knew from his travels. In 1858 he was named director of the garden and, almost ten years later at the age of 70, he opened a public botany course.
Durieu was one of the most active members of the Linnaean Society of Bordeaux and during his years at the garden undertook excursions around his home country. Corresponding with other French botanists about his findings he slowly became a knowledgeable systematic botanist himself and published several works. Particularly interested in the Isoetes or quillworts he described several new species and also published a monograph of Les Glumacées (the Poaceae) with Ernest Cusson. During his life Durieu contributed four new species to the flora of France and ten to the flora of Algeria and several botanists have named genera in his honour, including the Apiaceae Durieua Boiss. and Reut.
Sources:
B. Dayrat, 1997, Les botanistes et la flore de France: trois siècles de découverts
F. A. Stafleu and R. S. Cowan, 1976-1998, Taxonomic Literature, (2nd edition)
Wikipedia, Michel Charles Durieu du Maisonneuve:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Charles_Durieu_de_Maisonneuve, accessed February 2010.
