French botanist famous for devising and using a particularly narrow species concept. Alexis Jordan was born in Lyon to a rich family but, rather than follow his father and become a businessman, he preferred to study natural history. From 1845 he was a member of the Linnaean Society of Lyon in the field of entomology. Here he was introduced to many local naturalists, particularly M.A. Timeroy who had a profound influence on Jordan.

Timeroy studied the species of the region in great detail and introduced Jordan to the new forms he found. Jordan became increasingly interested in the different morphological types he encountered in different regions. Cultivating them he found that they retained their characteristics and decided to raise these geographically isolated ecotypes to species level, creating so-called micromorphs. In this the "Jordanian School" of botany was born.

In 1846 he published his first and most famous work, Observations sur plusiers Plantes nouvelles, rares ou critiques de la France, publicising these views. He received a lot of criticism for this tendency to split species so finely and the 1,685 species he named have since become referred to as Jordanias (G. Coutagne) or Jordanianas (J. P. Lotsy).

Between 1836 and 1877 Jordan traveled much of France, particularly the area surrounding Lyon, the Central Massif, the Alps and the Pyrenees, and collected a great deal of plants. Indeed his herbarium was amongst the largest of his era, having amassed exsiccatae series from some 200 other botanists. As well as this Jordan maintained an extensive collection of living specimens in his botanic garden in Lyon which, in 1832, was located in Villeurbanne and covered 6,400 square meters. His faithful collaborator J.V. Viviand-Morel aided him in the cultivation of some 100,000 different varieties of plants. Several species were named after him, including Rosa jordani Déègl. and Viola jordani Hanry.

Sources:
M. Coquillat, 1946, "Le jardin botanique d'Alexis Jordan", Bulletin Mensuel de la Société Linnéenne de Lyon, 15(10): 63-65
M. Coquillat, 1947, "L'etrange figure d'Alexis Jordan", Bulletin Mensuel de la Société Linnéenne de Lyon, 16(9): 188-191
A. Magnin, 1907, "Les statisticiens de la region Lyonnaise", Annales de la Société Botanique de Lyon, 32: 27-29
Claude Thomas Alexis Jordan, Wikipedia:
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Thomas_Alexis_Jordan, accessed 1 September 2010.