French botanist, geologist, and explorer best known for his collections from India. He was the son of Jacquemont de Moreau, a high functionary during the First Empire who conspired with General Mallet against 'Bonaparte and his system'. Victor Jacquemont studied medicine, botany, and geology in Paris and at the age of 26 sailed on the ship Cadmus to explore in North America and the French Antilles. In 1828 he was chosen by the professors at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris for a scientific mission to India. Arriving in Calcutta in May 1829, he started by making an inventory of the botanical garden founded by the British East India Company, and from there went via Benares to explore the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau, returning south to Delhi by December 1830. Exhausted by his travels, he died in Bombay at the age of 33 from dysentery complicated by malaria. His natural history collection was received by the Muséum in 1833 and studied by Isidore Geoffroy de Sainte-Hilaire, Henri Milne-Edwards, Emile Blanchard, Achilles Valenciennes and by the botanists Jacques Cambessèdes and Joseph Descaisne. Many plants are named after him, including the genus Jacquemontia Choisy in the Convolvulaceae. His elegant notes and journals were later edited by Cambessèdes and published in six volumes as Voyage dans l'Inde between 1841 and 1844.
Sources:
L. Allorge, 2003, La Fabuleuse Odysée des Plantes: 662-663
J. Beauverie, 1922, "Une Correspondence inedited de Victor Jacquemont", Revue D'Auvergne: 1-12.