Jean Pierre Étienne Vaucher (17 April 1763 - 6 January 1841) was a Swiss Protestant pastor

Pastor

The word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....

 and botanist who was a native of Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

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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

University of Geneva

The University of Geneva is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland.It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin, as a theological seminary and law school. It remained focused on theology until the 17th century, when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873, it...

, and for several years 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

Hans Conrad Escher von der Linth

Hans Conrad Escher von der Linth was a Swiss scientist, artist, and politician. He headed the "Great Council of Switzerland" in 1798, a period of French occupation. He also published a survey of the Swiss Alps and is perhaps most significant for his work in the project to "tame" the Linth river...

 (1767-1823) and Charles-Albert

Charles Albert of Sardinia

Charles Albert was the King of Piedmont-Sardinia from 1831 to 1849. He succeeded his distant cousin Charles Felix, and his name is bound with the first Italian statute and the First War of Independence...

 (1798-1849), the future King of Sardinia

Sardinia

Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

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Vaucher is remembered for his research involving developmental history of algae

Algae

Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelps that grow to 65 meters in length. They are photosynthetic like plants, and "simple" because their tissues are not organized into the many...

. In his 1803 treatise Histoire des Conferves d'eau douce he described the process of conjugation, which is a means of fertilization that takes place among algae. He also described the development of new networks in the cells of the algae genus Hydrodictyon. His name is lent to Vaucheria, which is a genus of yellow-green algae

Yellow-green algae

Yellow-green algae or xanthophytes are an important group of heterokont algae. Most live in freshwater, but some are found in marine and soil habitats. They vary from single-celled flagellates to simple colonial and filamentous forms. Xanthophyte chloroplasts contain the photosynthetic pigments...

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Selected publications

• Histoire des Conferves d'eau douce (1803)
• Histoire physiologique des plantes de l'Europe, 4 volumes (1804)
• Mémoire sur les seiches du lac de Genève (1805)
• Monographie des orobanches (1827)
• Souvenir d'un Pasteur Genevois, ou recueil de sermons (1842)