Dominique Alexandre Godron

Vocation

French physician, botanist, geologist and speleologist, among whose numerous writings were a publication on the flora of the Lorraine region of France called Flore de Lorraine (1843), and the three-volume Flore de France, a work on flora native to France and Corsica that was co-written with botanist Jean Charles Marie Grenier (1808-1875). In addition to his botanical works, he published a number of studies in the field of ethnology. Before Mendel, he discovered the main features of hybridation. In de l'Espece et des races dans les êtres organises he also demonstrated that hybridization in the vegetal world was, against the dominant thinking at the time, similar to hybridization in the animal world. He finally demonstrated the unity of mankind in his book dedicated to our species. In 1854 he became dean and professor of natural history at the Faculty of Sciences at Nancy. Here he established a natural history museum and reorganized its botanical garden (now the Jardin Dominique Alexandre Godron, renamed in his honour). He died on 16 August 1880, aged 73, in Nancy. Link to Wikipedia biography