Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu

Nephew of botanist Bernard de Jussieu, Antoine-Laurent graduated in medicine in Paris before succeeding his uncle as demonstrator at the Jardin du Roi. Rejecting Carl Linnaeus's artificial sexual system of counting stamens and pistils, Jussieu sought a natural classification based on mutual subordination of characters.

In his landmark 1789 masterpiece Genera Plantarum secundum ordines naturales disposita, he organized 20,000 plant species into 100 orders and 15 classes (such as monocotyledons and dicotyledons), establishing the basis of modern botanical taxonomy. He helped reorganize the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in 1793.