Salt Lake City, UT, USA. Jeanne Baret (27 July 1740 — 5 August 1807) disguised herself as a man in 1766 to work as assistant to botanist Philibert Commerson on the first French circumnavigation of the Earth.

Renowned herself as a botanist and the first female circumnavigator, Baret has finally been commemorated in the name of a new species.


In her life, Jeanne Baret united seemingly contradictory qualities: a woman dressed as a man, a female botanist in a male-dominated field, and a working class woman who travelled farther in her time than most aristocrats had ever dreamed of doing. A royal ordinance forbade women from being on French naval vessels which meant that prejudice and custom prevented the participation of most women in science.



Interview with Glynis Ridley, biographer of Jeanne Baret

Eric Tepe learned of Baret when he heard an interview on National Public Radio (NPR) with Glynis Ridley, author of The Discovery of Jeanne Baret (Crown, 2010).

Guy Raz interviewed Ridley on Weekend All Things Considered to discuss Baret and her adventures.


Audio courtesy of National Public Radio (NPR). Time: 00:8:53The two ships of the expedition were under the overall command of Louis Antoine de Bougainville and included a naturalist, Philibert Commerson (Commerçon) who enlisted Baret, working as a male called Jean as a valet and assistant. Baret was Commerson's lover, but Bougainville's account of the voyage cited Baret as an accomplished botanist in her own right.

Baret maintained her disguise all the time she was on board ship, and collected plants with Commerson in many locations (including Rio de Janeiro, the Strait of Magellan, Tahiti, Mauritius, and Madagascar). When Commerson's ill health prevented him from fieldwork, Baret was responsible for all collections, including the most famous botanical specimen from the expedition: the vine that would be named in honor of its commander, Bougainvillea Comm. ex Juss.

The couple collected over six thousand specimens, now incorporated into the French National Herbarium at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In the course of the expedition and the years after its successful completion, over seventy species would be named in honor of Commerson using the specific epithet commersonii.

But Commerson died before he could publish many designations proposed in his notes, which reveal his intention to name the Malagasy genus Baretia. The species concerned are now placed in the genus Turraea of the family Meliaceae.

Baret had been left without anything in the natural world to commemorate her name. That has changed since biologist Eric Tepe (University of Utah and University of Cincinnati) published findings in the journal PhytoKeys naming a new species in honor of Baret: Solanum baretiae.

Solanum baretiae, named after Jeanne Baret, is a vine endemic to the Amotape-Huancabamba zone of southern Ecuador and northern Peru where it grows in the understory of montane forests and disturbed roadside and pasture vegetation.

As shown in the image at the start of this article, the flowering branch at left can have petals in shades of violet, yellow, or white. The leaves are highly variable in shape, as are the leaves of the species that Commerson originally intended to name after Baret. (Courtesy of Eric Tepe). The image at right is a Solanum branch with immature fruits. Mature fruits are orange. (Courtesy of Lynn Bohs).

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Add Comment