Bonpland

Bonpland, Aimi (1773-1858), French botanist and traveller, studied medicine under Corvisart in Paris, and served as a surgeon in the French navy. He went with Humboldt in his five years' research expedition in the Amazon and Orinoco country, in Mexico, and Colombia, As the fruits of this expedition Bonpland brought back and classified 6,000 plants, till then for the most part unknown in Europe. After publishing some botanical works he tried to persuade Napoleon to retire to America. Not succeeding in this, he went himself (1816) to Buenos Ayres, taking with him various European plants. Elected professor of natural history, he soon threw up this employment in order to explore the centre of the continent, and projected an expedition up the Parana. In 1821 Dr. Francia, the dictator of Paraguay, arrested him as a spy, and kept him a prisoner for ten years at Santa Marta, where he interested himself in doctoring the poor of the neighbourhood. After being set free, he spent some years in the province of Corrientes, whose government showed its regard for him by giving him an estate. At Santa Anna, where he went in 1853, he cultivated the orange trees which he had introduced, and devoted himself to scientific research, and here he died.