In time he took courses in botany under Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu and met botanist René Desfontaines and naturalist Pierre Marie Auguste Broussonet.

[3] After the Storming of the Bastille in 1789, new laws in France permitted freedom of the press and assembly, allowing the formation of new societies, newspapers and journals.

His friendship with Roland allowed Bosc to rise to a substantial position, but when that minister fell into disgrace he was dismissed on 31 May 1793.

La Réveliière-Lépeaux, having become a member of the Directoire, allowed Bosc to leave for the United States, first as vice-consul to Wilmington in 1797, then as consul to New York in 1798.

This work was the first-ever systematic examination of the mushrooms of the southern United States, and established Bosc as the founder of mycology in that region.

[7] Bosc was brought back to France, where he served for a time as administrator of hospitals and prisons and obtained, in 1803, after a sojourn in Switzerland and Italy courtesy of Georges Cuvier, a position in the gardens and nurseries of Versailles.

Thus, Fabricius and Guillaume-Antoine Olivier received his insects; François Marie Daudin, his birds; Pierre André Latreille, his reptiles; and the comte de Lacépède, his fish.

In 1825, he succeeded André Thouin to the chair of plant culture at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.