PLUMIER, CHARLES

(b. Marseilles, France, 20 April 1646; d. El Puerto de Santa María, near Cádiz, Spain, 20 November 1704)

natural history, botany.

Plumier’s father was a thrower, and he taught his son the craft. At the age of sixteen Plumier entered the Order of Minims and studied physics, mathematics, and drawing. Subsequently he was sent to Rome, where, influenced by Paolo Boccone, he abandoned mathematics for botany. Later he was sent back to Provence and lived at the convent in Bormes, near Hyères, where he met Tournefort, with whom he botanized.

In 1689, at the request of Louis XIV, Plumier agreed to accompany Joseph Surian, a physician from Marseilles, on a voyage to the Caribbean. With a view toward medical application of all the gathered plants, Surian made chemical analyses, while Plumier’s task was to form natural history collections. The two men quarreled, and on a second voyage (1693) Plumier traveled alone as botaniste du rot. Upon his return he published Description des plantes de l’Amèrique, which included 107 plates engraved at royal expense.

In 1695 Plumier set out on a third expedition. He visited Guadeloupe, Martinique, Santo Domingo, and also the southern coast of Brazil. After the voyage he composed two important works: Nova plantarum americanarum genera (1703), which contains forty plates and descriptions of 106 new genera, each of which was dedicated to a botanist; and Traité des fougères de l’Amérique (1705), with 172 plates.

In 1704 Plumier—inspired by Gui Crescent Fagon—decided to sail to Peru in search of the cinchona tree. While waiting for the departure of the ship he died, probably from pneumonia.

Plumier was one of the first naturalists interested in the Antilles. He is known for his excellent descriptions and drawings of a great number of species. Although Plumier’s herbarium from the Antilles was lost in a shipwreck, his drawings and Surian’s herbarium on which Plumier collaborated are extant. Plumeria, an American tree or shrub of the family Apocynaceae, was named in honor of Plumier.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Plumier’s works include Description des plantes de l’Amérique, avec leurs figures, par le R. P. Charles Plumier (Paris, 1693); “Réponse du Père Plumier a M. Pommet, marchand droguiste à Paris, sur la cochenille,” in Journal des sçavans (1694); L’art de tourner ou defaire en perfection toutes sortes d’outrages au tour . . . ouvrage très curieux et très nécessaire à ceux quis’exercent em tour; composé en français, et en latin, en faveur des ètranmgers (Lyon, 1701; 1749); “Reponse du P. C. Plumier à une lettre de Mr. Baulot ècrite de la Rochelle,” in Mémoircs pour servir a I’histoire des sciences et des beaux-arts (1702), 112–113; and “Lome sur une espèce de mou-cherons bleus observés dans le montagne de Lure. Lettre (2de) sur la cochenille,” ibid., (1703).

See also Nova plantarum americanarum genera . . . catalogns plantarum amerieanarum (Paris, 1703); Filicetum amerieanarum, seu filicum, polypodiorum, adiantorum, etc. . . . in America nascentium, icones; auctore P. Car. Plumier (Paris, 1703); Réponse du P. Plumier à diverses questions d’un curieux sur le crocodile, sur le colibri et sur la tortue (Paris, 1704); Traité des fougères de l’Amerique (Paris, 1705); and Plantarum americanarum fasciculus primus (-decimus) continens plantas quas olim Caro/us Plumierius . . . detexit eruitque atque in insulis Antillis ipse depinxit. Has primum in lucetn edidit . . . aeneisque tahidis illustravit Joannes Burmannus (Amsterdam, 1755–1760).

II. Secondary Literature. Works on Plumier are Michaud, Biographie universelle, new ed., XXXIII, 536–539; A. Saverien, “Histoire des philosophes modernes avec leur portrait gravé dans le goût du crayon, d’après les desseins des plus grands peintres par M. Saverien,” in Histoire des muuralistes, 8 (1773), 39–44; and Ignaz Urban, “Plumier, Leben und Schriften nebst einen Schlüssel zu einen Blüten-Pflanzen,” in Beihefte zum Repertorium specierum novarum regni vegetabilis, 5 (1920). 1–196.

Paul Jovet

J. C. Mallet