JORDAN, ALEXIS. - French naturalist, self-taught, botanist, b. at Lyon in 1814, d. there in 1897. He is known for his discovery that the Linnaean "species" is composed of "small species" or elementary species, called jordanon in his honor by Lotsy. This discovery, given prominence by De Vries, is one of the scientific achievements that has most influenced the conception of the variability of species.

J. was opposed to transformism for reasons both religious and scientific. His is the expression: "religious tradition must serve the researcher as a compass" for judging the exactness of his discoveries.

Among his works: De l'origine des diverses variétés ou espèces d'arbres fruitiers, Paris 1853; Icones ad florem Europae novo fundamento instaurandam spectantes, (in collaboration with J. Fourreau, 3 vols., ibid. 1866-1903).

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: J. P. Lotsy, Evolution im Lichte der Bastardierung betrachtet, in Genetica, 7 (1926), pp. 371-73; H. H. Allan, The importance of the jordanon in problems of geographical distribution, in Fifth International Botanical Congress. Proceedings, Cambridge 1930, pp. 106-11; A. Eymieu, La part des croyants dans les progrès de la science, II, Paris 1920, p. 101 ff.

Luigi Screnin

@incollection{ec7_jordan_alexis, author = {Scremin, Luigi}, title = {Jordan, alexis}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {591}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/jordan-alexis} }

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Jordan, Alexis

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