Genus Tournefortia

For Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656–1708), French botanist and physician, naturalist, professor of medicine and botany. He studied medicine at Montpellier and was appointed professor of botany at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris in 1683. His principal work, Eléments de Botanique, ou Méthode pour Reconnaître les Plantes (1684) attempted to classify some 7 000 plants into class, section, genus and species. His system remained in practice until it was superseded by that of Linnaeus who used five ranks: class, order, genus, species and variety. Between 1700 and 1702, Tournefort travelled extensively in western Europe and eastern Anatolia (Armenia, Georgia, Turkey) collecting plants. He died in an accident when hit by a carriage in Paris.