Jean-Louis Émile Boudier (1828 - 1920) - a brief biography

The information below is derived from many sources; major reference texts are listed at the foot of the page.

Jean-Louis Émile Boudier was born in Garnay, some 20km west of Paris, on 6th January 1828, In 1853 he was awarded a first-class degree in pharmacy, and a year later at the age of 25 he set up in business as a pharmacist at the spa town of Enghien les Bains and later too over his father's pharmacy at Montmorency, a suburb of northern Paris. Boudier continued as a pharmacist until, at the age of 50, he decided to work full time on his entomological and, more particularly, mycological research work, including extensive microscopic study of Discomycetes.

Boudier was also a very competent artist and produced some 600 watercolour paintings of fungi, including their microscopic characters. These 'icones' were acclaimed at the time as the 'acme of excellence', and copies of these beautifully illustrated works are still highly prized today.

Boudier retired to Blois, central France, in 1917 and died there on 4th February 1920 at the age of 92.

The abbreviation Boud. is used to indicate Jean-Louis Émile Boudier as the author when citing a botanical or mycological name.

Positions and Awards

1866 awarded the Orfila Prize by the French National Academy of Medicine

1906 Elected as Director of the Association International de Geographie Botanique

1908 Honary member of the British Mycological Society

Major Mycological Works

• Révision analytique des morilles de France - a taxonomic revision of the morels found in France (1897)

• Influence de la nature du sol et les vegetaux qui y croissant sur le développement des champignons - Influence of the nature of the soil and the plants growing in the area upon the development of fungi (1901)

• Icones mycologicae ou iconographie des champignons de France, principalement Discomycètes - Mycological pictures or iconography of the mushrooms of France, mainly the 454 Discomycetes; Klincksieck (1904 to 1909)

• Histoire et - Classification des Discomycètes d'Europe - History and - Classification of the Discomycetes of Europe (1907)

• La fresque de Plaincourault (Indre) - The fresco of Plaincourault (Indre)), in Bulletin de la Société Mycologique de France (1911) 27 pp. 31 - 33

Selected Sources:

Hommage à Emile Boudier, Roger Heim; Laboratoire de cryptogamie du Museum national d'histoire naturelle (1949)

Introduction to the History of Mycology, Geoffrey Clough Ainsworth (1976)

Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2007 [e-book]. ISBN 0-684-31559-9.

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