Jean Pierre Étienne Vaucher

Jean Pierre Étienne Vaucher (17 April 1763 – 5 or 6 January 1841) was a Swiss Protestant pastor and botanist who was a native of the Republic of Geneva.[1]

He studied theology at Geneva, and from 1795 to 1821 was a pastor at the Church of Saint-Gervais. From 1808 to 1840 he was a professor of church history at the University of Geneva, and for a number of years he also taught classes in botany. Among his better-known students were botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841), scientist Hans Conrad Escher von der Linth (1767-1823) and Charles-Albert (1798-1849), the future King of Sardinia.

Vaucher is remembered for his research involving the developmental history of algae. In his 1803 treatise Histoire des Conferves d'eau douce, he described the process of conjugation in certain algae as a distinct sexual process. The phenomena of conjugation is a means of fertilization that takes place in green algae such as Spirogyra. He is credited for describing the development of the networks that occur in the cells of Hydrodictyon (water net algae), and for describing the pyrenoid of algae.

He is honoured in the name of a genus of yellow-green algae, Vaucheria,[2] named by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle.[3]

Selected publications

References
  1. DeCandolle, Alphonse (November 1842). "XXIV.—On the Life and Writings of J.P.E. Vaucher". The Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 10 (64): 161–168. doi:10.1080/03745484209445215.
  2. Page:History of botany (Sachs; Garnsey).djvu/227 The Influence of the History of Development.
  3. Guiry, M.D.; Guiry, G.M. (2013). "AlgaeBase. World-wide electronic publication". National University of Ireland, Galway. Retrieved 17 November 2013.
  4. IPNI.  Vaucher.
  • Parts of this article are based on a translation of an equivalent article at the German Wikipedia.
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