Organisation(s)
G (main), B, BERN, BM, BP, BR, CGE, CN, F, FI, GE, JE, K, L, LE, MANCH, MPU, NEU, NMW, OXF, P, PAL, TO, US, W, WAG
Associate(s)
Candolle, Alphonse Louis Pierre Pyramus de (1806-1893) (student)
Huet du Pavillon, Édouard (1819-1908) (brother, co-collector)
Jacquin, Nicolaus (Nicolaas) Joseph von (1727-1817) (co-collector)
Pavillon, H. de (synonym)
Shuttleworth, Robert James (1810-1874) (co-collector)
Biography
French botanist and secretary. Alfred Huet du Pavillon travelled much of Europe with his brother, Édouard, and together they amassed a considerable herbarium. Born in Blain he studied in Fribourg from 1835 and moved with his family to Geneva in 1847 where he continued his education. Alongside his brother Alfred he helped found the Société Hallérienne de Genevé and around 1851, he worked as a curator of their herbarium as well as serving for some time as an assistant in the Conservatoire Botanique in Geneva (G).
Around this time he began to explore Geneva's environs together with Édouard, collecting plants in the Alps and Valais and climbing Mont-Blanc in 1851. Following a trip to the Pyrenees in 1852 the brothers decided to enrich their growing collection with examples from further afield and planned a trip to Persia and Armenia. After their arrival in Constantinople in 1853 they travelled east through Turkey but their journey was cut short by the Crimean War. Despite having to return home early they still managed to bring back some 100 new varieties for the flora of the Orient. In 1854 they visited Sardinia and the following year undertook an even more successful expedition to Sicily and Naples. From these travels they issued numerous series of exsiccatae, including Plantae siculae and Plantae neapolitanae, but abandoned botany completely in 1857.
The Huet du Pavillon brothers founded a boarding school this same year which Édouard directed while Albert was called to Frohsdorf in Lanzenkirchen, Austria, in order to serve as the secretary to the Count of Chambourd. Continuing in this role even after the death of the count, he served the Countess and the Duke of Parme instead. The Huet herbarium, rich in types particularly from the Italian expedition, contained 14,000 numbers and was donated to the herbarium in Geneva by Édouard's son in 1912.
Sources:
J. Briquet, 1940, "Biographies des Botanistes a Genéve de 1500 a 1930", Bulletin de la Société Botanique Suisse, 50a: 277-281
F.A. Stafleu and R.S. Cowan, 1976-1998, Taxonomic Literature, 2nd edition (TL-2).
References
Brummitt, R.K. & Powell, C.E., Authors Pl. Names (1992): 288; Harrison, S.G., Ind. Coll. Welsh Nat. Herb. (1985): 55; Jackson, B.D., Bull. Misc. Inform. Kew (1901): 33, 51; Lanjouw, J. & Stafleu, F.A., Index Herb. Coll. E-H (1957): 55, 290; Murray, G.R.M., Hist. Coll. Nat. Hist. Dep. Brit. Mus. (1904): 105, 156;
