DECAISNE, JOSEPH. — Botanist, born in Brussels on 7 March 1807, died in Paris on 8 February 1882. Beginning as a draftsman at the Jardin des plantes, he went on to become director of cultivation at the museum and president of the Botanical Society. An eminently inductive spirit, he sought to test the Darwinian hypothesis through observation and experiment in order to “catch in the act” the “struggle for existence” among species of the genus pirus, without succeeding in confirming that hypothesis.
BIBL.: Principal work: Le Jardin fruitier du Museum ou Iconographie de toutes les espèces et variétés d'arbres fruitiers cultivés dans cet établissement, 9 vols., Paris 1858–75. Biographical data: M. Berthelot, Science et éducation, Paris 1901, pp. 177–209. The list of D.’s publications is found in the Catalogue générale de la bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, XXXVI, pp. 675–81. Luigi Scremin