Victor Jacquemont was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 botanist and geologist

Geologist

A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...

.

Born in Paris on August 8, 1801, Victor Jacquemont was the youngest of four sons of Venceslas Jacquemont and Rose Laisné.

Jacquemont traveled to India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 in 1828, and remained there for the rest of his life. He visited Amber in Rajputana

Rajputana

Rājputāna was the pre-1949 name of the present-day Indian state of Rājasthān, the largest state of the Republic of India in terms of area. George Thomas was the first in 1800 A.D., to term this region as Rajputana...

, met with the Sikh

Sikh

A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...

 Emperor Ranjit Singh

Ranjit Singh

Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji was the first Maharaja of the Sikh Empire.-Early life:...

 at his capital of Lahore

Lahore

Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...

, and visited the kingdom of Ladakh

Ladakh

Ladakh is a region of Jammu and Kashmir, the northernmost state of the Republic of India. It lies between the Kunlun mountain range in the north and the main Great Himalayas to the south, inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent...

 in the Himalaya. He also visited Bardhaman

Bardhaman

'Bardhaman or Burdwan , is a city of West Bengal state in eastern India. It is the headquarters of Bardhaman District....

 (Burdwan) in Bengal

Bengal

Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...

 in November 1829. He died of disease in Bombay on December 7, 1832.

Several plants are named for him, including Acacia jacquemontii

Acacia jacquemontii

Acacia jacquemontii, known as , is a species of Acacia native to the Thar Desert of India. It is an erect shrub usually to high, with multiple shoots coming from below ground. It commonly grows on dry sandy soils. It is very hardy, being capable of standing extremes of temperature and excessive...

, the Himalayan White Birch (Betula jacquemontii), the Indian Tree Hazel (Corylus jacquemontii), Afghan Cherry (Prunus jacquemontii), and the cobra lily or Jack in the pulpit (Arisaema jacquemontii

Arisaema

Arisaema is a genus of about 150 species in the flowering plant family Araceae, native to eastern and central Africa, Asia and eastern North America. Its species are often called Cobra lilies, particularly the Asiatic species...

).

External links

• Victor Jacquemont papers at the American Philosophical Society