Jean Louis Marie Poiret, clergyman and botanist, was born in Saint-Quentin, Picardy. He carried out significant exploration in Algeria in 1785-1786. The aim of the expedition, sponsored by King Louis XVI, was to produce an inventory of the flora of Barbary, and resulted in Poiret’s 1789 work Voyage en Barbarie. He later served as a professor at the École Centrale in Aisne, France. Among his other written works were Histoire philosophique, littéraire, économique des plantes d'Europe (1825-1829), Encyclopédie Méthodique: Botanique (1816, with J.B. Lamarck) and Flore médicale (1833-1835, as a co-author). Poiret died in Paris in April 1834. The genus Poiretia Cav. is named in his honour, as is the online journal Poiretia.

Sources:
Anon, 1973, "HI-IAPT Portraits of Botanists No. 47. Jean Louis Marie Poiret", Taxon, 22(5/6): 590
F. Cardew, 1953, Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, 78: 293-294
N. Hall, 1978, Botanists of the Eucalypts: 104
A. Lasègue, 1845, Musée botanique de M. Benjamin Delessert: 59, 316, 321, 441, 504.