André Michaux

André Michaux

André Michaux, botanist, explorer (b near Versailles, France 8 Mar 1746; d on Madagascar 11 Oct 1803?). He compiled the first North American flora which includes many plants collected in Lower Canada in 1792. Michaux learned about practical horticulture in France before embarking on a series of botanizing expeditions in Europe, Persia (1782-85) and the US (1785-96). After meeting Peter Pond in June 1792 he visited Montréal and Québec before proceeding by canoe up the Saguenay River through unexplored territory to Lac Mistassini. Michaux kept a diary and collected numerous new plants (his herbarium is in the Musée nationale d'histoire naturelle, Paris). According to contemporary records, Michaux was a quiet, independent and simple man, more at ease with the natives than with his fellow Frenchmen. He wrote Historie des chênes de l'Amérique (1801) and Flora boreali-americana, 2 vols (1803), both edited by his son, François-André.