Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.
PLUMIER, CHARLES. - Minims, naturalist-botanist, b. in Marseille on Apr. 20, 1646, d. at Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz) on Nov. 16, 1704.
He made his profession among the Minims in Marseille in 1623 [sic, likely 1663], studied philosophy and mathematics in Toulouse under Fr. MAIGNAN, EMMANUEL (v.); in Rome, at the convent of Trinità, he passionately studied
(from C. Plumier, Traité des Fougères de l'Amérique, Paris 1703, pl. 66) PLUMIER, CHARLES - Figures of ferns drawn and engraved by C. P.passionately natural sciences and botany. In 1680 he explored Provence together with Tournefort. Appointed royal botanist by Louis XIV, at his behest he made three voyages to America, from 1689 to 1695, to study medicinal plants there. He wrote many works, most of them with figures finely drawn and engraved by himself. The principal published ones are: Description des plantes de l'Amérique (Paris 1693); Nova plantarum Americanarum genera cum figuris (ibid. 1703); Traité des fougères de l'Amérique (ibid. 1705); Plantarum Americanarum fasciculi decem, edited by Burman (Amsterdam 1755-60); L'Art de tourner (Lyon 1701; 2nd ed. Paris 1749; translated into Russian by order of Tsar Peter the Great). Other works remained in manuscript, 37 of which are still today in the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Tournefort dedicated to P.'s memory a genus of apocynées called "plumeria".
BIBL.: J. Urban, Plumiers Leben und Schriften nebst einem Schlüssel zu seinen Blütenpflanzen, Dahlem (Berlin) 1920; P. V. Fournier, Voyages et découvertes scientifiques des missionnaires naturalistes à travers le monde, in Encyclopédie biologique, X, Paris 1932, pp. 53-59; M. Möbius, Geschichte der Botanik, Jena 1937, p. 129. Gennaro Moretti
Cite this article
“PLUMIER, CHARLES.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IX (1952), p. 983. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/plumier-charles.
