Jean Baptiste Christophore Fusée Aublet

Who was Jean Baptiste Christophore Fusée Aublet?

Jean Baptiste Christophore Fusée Aublet was a French pharmacist, botanist and explorer.

Born in Salon-de-Provence, he joined the French East India Company and in 1752 was sent to Mauritius to establish a pharmacy and a botanical garden. He worked there for nine years. During this time he was accused of having destroyed plants from the collection of Pierre Poivre, being jealous of the latter's success.

In 1762 he was sent to Cayenne in French Guiana, where he assembled a vast herbarium which allowed him to prepare his Histoire des plantes de la Guiane françoise, published in 1775 and including almost 400 copperplate engravings.

When Fusée Aublet died at Paris in 1778, he left his herbarium to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, though the latter possessed it for only two months before he too died. It was eventually acquired by the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in 1953.