Aimé Bonpland

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Aimé Jacques Alexandre Bonpland (August 22, 1773 - May 4, 1858) was a French explorer and botanist.

Bonpland's real name was Goujand, and he was born in La Rochelle a coastal city in France. After serving as a surgeon in the French army and studying under J.N. Corvisart at Paris, he accompanied Alexander von Humboldt during five years of travel in Mexico, Colombia and the districts bordering on the Orinoco and Amazon. In these explorations he collected and classified about 6000 plants which were until then mostly unknown in Europe, which he afterwards described in Plantes equinoxiales (Paris, 1808-1816). A historic fictional account of these travels are detailed in Daniel Kehlmann's Die Vermessung der Welt (translated: "Measuring the World").

On returning to Paris he received a pension and the superintendence of the gardens at Malmaison, and published Monographie des Melastomes (1806), and Description des plantes rares cultivees a Malmaison et a Navarre (1813). In 1816 he set out, taking with him various European plants, for Buenos Aires, where he was elected professor of natural history, an office which he soon left in order to explore central South America. While journeying to Bolivia he was arrested in 1821, by command of José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, the dictator of Paraguay, who detained him until 1831.

On regaining liberty he resided at San Borga in the province of Corrientes, until his removal in 1853 to Santa Anna, where he died.

The lunar crater Bonpland is named after him.

A fort in Palermo Holywood, Buenos Aires, is named after him as well.

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.