Biography

French apothecary, explorer, gardener and botanist who was one of the earliest botanical explorers in South America and a pioneer of ethnobotany. As a boy Jean Aublet ran away from his home in southern France, boarded a Spanish ship and became an apothecary's assistant in Granada. Here he spent a year learning about medicinal plants before being tracked down by his parents and obliged to return to France.

Aublet went on to train as an apothecary and was sent the French colonies to establish a drug house and discover new medicines for the Royal Apothecary. This required the creation of a botanic garden for plant introductions and he was appointed the first Director (1753-1767) of the Mon Plaisir garden in Île de France (Mauritius), then under the governorship of the the French East India Company (Compagnie des Indes). Mon Plaisir would become variously known as the Jardin de Pamplemousses or the Pamplemousses Botanic Garden and the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanic Garden. But Aublet was unhappy with Mon Plaisir and became involved in intense rivalry there with fellow botanist Pierre Poivre, so he took his plants and founded another garden at Le Réduit which, from 1764, became the official residence for governors of Mauritius

Aublet collected plants from other French colonies and travelled to French Guiana (1762), at that time notorious for its lawlessness and many dangers posed by fugitive slaves and Amerindians. Aublet was unusual for his generation in being against slavery and worked with local people to learn traditional uses of plants. But his attitude made him very unpopular with local colonists, who spread rumours about his 'corrupt' nature. On leaving French Guiana he felt obliged to obtain a certificate of good and honorable conduct from the Procurator General, in order to clear his name.

Aublet published Histoires des Plantes de la Guiane Française, a monumental achievement listing over 400 new species at a time when there were only around 20,000 plant species known in the world. His collections were subsequently dispersed between Britain and France, those in Britain being purchased by Joseph Banks including types for his account of the flora of French Guiana. These specimens were acquired by BM with the Banks herbarium in 1827 and the material includes both phanerogams and cryptogams from French Guiana and Mauritius. Original drawings and manuscripts are also deposited in the library of The Natural History Museum. Many of the French collections disappeared for over 150 years before surfacing in a small regional French herbarium in 1939, having been incorporated into the private herbarium of the French philosopher J.-J. Rousseau (1712-1778). They are now incorporated into the herbarium at P. A number of generic names have been proposed in honour of Aublet including Aubletia J. Gaertn. in the Sonneratiaceae, described in 1788. Aubletia Schreb. (1789) in the Malvaceae is a synonym of Apeiba Aubl. and Aubletia Lour. (1790) in the Rhamnaceae is referable to Paliurus.