Sébastien Vaillant

Sébastien Vaillant
Born	26 May 1669 Vigny
Died	20 May 1722 (1722-05-21) (aged 52) Paris
Nationality	French
Alma mater	Jardin des Plantes
Known for	botany
Scientific career
Doctoral advisor	Joseph Pitton de Tournefort

Sébastien Vaillant (26 May 1669 – 20 May 1722) was a French botanist.

Vaillant was born at Vigny in present-day Val d'Oise. He studied medicine at Pontoise, and then moved to Paris to practice as a surgeon, where he studied botany at the Jardin des Plantes under Joseph Pitton de Tournefort.

Vaillant was appointed to the staff of the Jardin des Plantes in 1702, becoming sub-demonstrator of plants in 1708. In his inaugural lecture, Vaillant discussed the reproduction of plants and floral organ function by making analogies with animal reproduction.

Fagon obtained permission from Louis XIV to build a drug cabinet in the Jardin du Roi, Charge the load and provide care.

In 1714, he obtained permission to build a greenhouse to cultivate succulents, and a second in 1717. He introduced the use of greenhouses into France.

In 1716, Vail entered the Academy of Sciences.

He became ill and too poor to publish his 'Botanicon parisiensis' (alphabetically or Enumeration of plants that grow in and around Paris) illustrated by Claude Aubriet, a fruit of 36 years of work; he left his work at Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738). This engraved illustrations and published in 1727. It is a work of particular importance in the history of botany and one of the first to describe the flora known. Vaillant introduces the terms of stamen, ovary and egg in their current direction.

All his life, Vaillant opposed the theses of Tournefort; for this he was dedicated, however, a genus Valantia, as Carl von Linné (1707–1778) later changed in Vaillantia (family Rubiaceae). His herbarium is now kept at the National Museum of Natural History.

The standard botanical author abbreviation Vaill. is applied to species he described.

External links

• Vaillant, Sébastien (1727) Botanicon Parisiense, ou Denombrement par ordre alphabetique des plantes - digital facsimile from the Linda Hall Library