Charles Plumier

He made three botanizing expeditions to the West Indies, which resulted in a massive work Nova Plantarum Americanarum Genera (1703–1704) and was appointed botanist to King Louis XIV of France.

On being sent to the French monastery of Trinità dei Monti at Rome, Plumier studied botany under two members of the order, and especially under Cistercian botanist, Paolo Boccone.

The material gathered was prodigious: besides the Nova Plantarum Americanarum Genera it filled the volumes of Plumier's Filicetum Americanum (1703) and several shorter pieces for the Journal des Savants and the Memoires de Trévoux.

At his death Plumier left 31 manuscript volumes containing notes and descriptions, and about 6,000 drawings, 4,000 of which were of plants, while the remainder reproduced American animals of nearly all classes, especially birds and fishes.

[3] The botanist Herman Boerhaave had 508 of these drawings copied at Paris; these were published later in a hommage by Burmann, Professor of Botany at Amsterdam, under the title: "Plantarum americanarum, quas olim Carolus Plumerius botanicorum princeps detexit", fasc.