François André Michaux
Encyclopedia
François André Michaux (1770–1855) was a French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 botanist
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

, son of André Michaux
André Michaux
André Michaux was a French botanist and explorer.-Biography:Michaux was born in Satory, now part of Versailles, Yvelines. After the death of his wife within a year of their marriage he took up the study of botany and was a student of Bernard de Jussieu...

. He accompanied his father to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and his Histoire des arbres forestiers de l'Amérique septentrionale (three volumes, 1810–13) contains the results of his explorations and gives an account of the distribution and the scientific classification of the principal American timber trees north of Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 and east of the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...

. Under the title The North American Sylva it was translated by Hillhouse
James Hillhouse
James Hillhouse was an American lawyer, real estate developer, and politician from New Haven, Connecticut. He represented Connecticut in both the U.S. House and Senate...

. The work was reissued in 1852 by Robert Smith of Philadelphia, again in three quarto volumes, and again with 156 hand colored lithographs of American trees and shrubs. A supplement of three additional volumes, trees, "...not Described in the Work of F. Andrew Michaux" was issued by Smith in 1853, in the same quarto format and with 121 additional hand colored plates. The later work, by Thomas Nuttall, describes trees of the Rockies and Pacific Coast.

Francois Andre Michaux published his monumental work, The North American Sylva, first in French and then in English translation, between 1811 and 1819. With illustrations by Pierre Joseph Redoute' and Pancrace Bessa, two masters of botanical art, his opus rapidly became a landmark in American literature and the--foundation--of American forestry. His work was augmented by the British botanist, Thomas Nuttal, whose work added 121 hand-colored plates to the 156 originally with Michaux's Sylva. His additions cover eastern species overlooked by Michaux, and new species he had gathered on his excursions in the Midwest and West

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