Director of the Saigon Botanic Gardens in the 1860s-1870s. Louis Pierre was the son of a sugar and coffee planter on the isle of Réunion. He was born here at Saint-André and received his early education locally, but was sent by his parents to Paris in 1851 to continue his studies. He began studying medicine in the city and continued with this subject in Strasbourg in 1855, but after an economic crisis left his family in financial difficulty, he was forced to leave his studies in France incomplete. In 1861 he found a position as an aide-naturaliste to an Englishman, Thomas Anderson, at the Calcutta Botanic Garden, where he remained for four years.
Although he earned respect for his diligence in Calcutta, Pierre desired to live in a French colony and thus in 1865 took over the directorship of the Jardin Botanique in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), the capital of French Cochinchina (Vietnam). In this part of Asia the French botanist made his name, serving more than 12 years in the Saigon gardens. Following his appointment he proceeded to organise numerous expeditions into the interior of the country and to neighbouring Cambodia and Siam (Thailand), using the material collected to prepare his magnum opus, the Flore forestière de la Cochinchine and another work, the Flore général de l'Indo-Chine. Pierre also visited Java and India (Bombay, Madras) to look at Cinchona culture on behalf of the Indo-Chinese government before returning to Paris to work on his forest flora in 1878. In this year he also contributed to the Exposition Universelle, representing the colony of Cochinchina, and was awarded the Gold Medal for his collection of woods displayed here. In addition, he was recognised for his work in Saigon by being made a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur. Pierre's forest flora became a major oeuvre, comprising 400 large folio plates. During his years in Paris he also authored monographs on genera including Garcinia and Clitandra, and many papers on the anatomy of the petiole. As well as his copious collections from Southeast Asia, he left upwards of 10,000 microscopic preparations, especially illustrating petioles.
Sources:
Anon., 1906, Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information, 1906(4): 121-122
M.F. Gagnepain, 1906, Bulletin de la Société Botanique de France, 53: 54-59
M.J. van Steenis Kruseman, "Cyclopedia of Collectors", Flora Malesiana, online edn:
http://www.nationaalherbarium.nl/FMCollectors/P/PierreL.htm, accessed 6 January 2010.
