Letter 1283

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort to Hans Sloane – June 17, 1690


Item info

Date: June 17, 1690
Author: Joseph Pitton de Tournefort
Recipient: Hans Sloane

Library: British Library, London
Manuscript: Sloane MS 4036
Folio: f. 84



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Transcription

Tournefort is glad Sloane returned safely from Jamaica. The war keeps him from coming to London to pay Sloane a visit. He encourages Sloane to publish his Jamaican observations. Tournefort would send Sloane some items from his own trip to Spain and Portugal, but he is convinced they are nothing compared to Sloane’s West Indian collection. Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708) was a French botanist who developed the idea of taxonomically organizing plants according to the concept of genus. He published the famous Elements de botanique (1694) and travelled the Mediterranean and Caucuses to research their flora from 1700 to 1702 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pitton_de_Tournefort).




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