Biography

French botanist born on Martinique. Variously a soldier, police officer, salesman and a refugee in Geneva, Mercier dedicated himself to botany under the tutelage of A.-P. de Candolle in Geneva from 1822. After a spell in the military, Mercier worked as a police officer in Westphalia before making lengthy trips in the Americas as a trader. During this time he forged relationships with the likes of José Vargas, Pablo de la Llave and Ramón de la Sagra, which profited the herbaria of A.-P. de Candolle and Stefano Moricand in Geneva, and also made his own collections. On his return, penniless and unhappy with the restoration of the French monarchy, he decided to settle in Geneva where his taste for botany developed further with the help of the de Candolles. Mercier was also a friend of Nicolas Seringe, who published an extract from Mercier's nearly finished manuscript, Choix de plantes exotique rares ou nouvelles, in his Bulletin botanique in June 1830. The work remained unpublished after Mercier's death in 1831, by which time he had formed a considerable herbarium of 300,000 items, purchased by the British naturalist Philip Barker Webb, who transported it to Florence. Merciera Alph. de Candolle is dedicated to him.