Antoine Duss was born in Haslé and attended school in Lucerne. He left Switzerland for Paris to become a missionary and went on to work in religious colleges in Martinique (1865-1889) and Guadeloupe (1891-1906). He collected plants on these islands and on Antigua, Barbuda, Dominica and St. Lucia during this time. His main herbarium was deposited in Berlin but large numbers of specimens also went to the Smithsonian Institution, the New York Botanical Garden, the Field Museum and Paris. Duss was the author of Flore phanérogamique des Antilles françaises.

Sources:
G. Sayre, 1975, "Cryptogamae Exsiccatae: an annotated bibliography of exsiccatae of algae, lichens, hepaticae, and musci. V. Unpublished Exsiccatae: I. Collectors", Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden, 19(3): 315-316
1931, Bulletin de la Société botanique de France, 70: 659-662
J. Carrard, "Le Père Anton Düss":
http://www.spiritains.org/qui/figures/defunts/dussa.htm, accessed 8 November 2011.