Joseph Decaisne

Joseph Decaisne (1807 to 1882) was a French botanist and agronomist who was born in Brussels but worked exclusively in Paris. He entered the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle as a gardener in 1824, became head of its carré des semis section in 1832 and served as aide-naturaliste to Adrien-Henri de Jussieu, the chair of rural botany, studying plants brought back by travelers such as Victor Jacquemont from Asia. He used applied research, most notably on the agronomy of madder, the yam and the ramie, and he was also interested in algae. In 1847 he chaired the Statistical Agriculture department at the Collège de France, in 1850 he succeeded Charles-François Brisseau de Mirbel as chair of horticulture at the Museum, and in 1854 he took part in creating the Société botanique de France. He described many genera of flowering plants, and several genera are named in his honour.