Alphonse de Candolle

Alphonse de Candolle (1806–1893) was a Swiss botanist, the son and successor of the great systematic botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. Born in Paris and raised in Geneva, he took a law degree before turning to botany, succeeded his father as professor and director of the botanical garden at Geneva and continued the vast Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis, a description of all known plant species. His own major works were Géographie botanique raisonnée, a founding text of plant geography, and Origin of Cultivated Plants, which traced the history of crops through botany, archaeology and philology. He also drew up the first international rules of botanical nomenclature in 1867.