Auguste Plée

Auguste Plée (1787 in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe – 17 August 1825 in Fort Royal, Martinique) was a French botanist.

He occupied an important official position in the French administration of Guadeloupe, but was devoted to natural history. In 1819 he was commissioned by the French government to survey the plants of South America. He sailed in 1820, and 1821 found him sketching coastal Virginia. He had visited the United States mostly to see Philadelphia, the home of some early American naturalists and the headquarters of the American Philosophical Society. Besides Virginia, Plée also made side trips to New York state and Canada. Between 1821 and 1823, he was sketching military installations, ports and towns in Puerto Rico. After traveling extensively, and forming numerous collections of plants, he fell sick and returned to Martinique. A wife and son survived him.

Four species of Caribbean reptiles are named in honor of Plée: Ameiva plei, Diploglossus pleii, Mastigodryas pleei, and Gymnophthalmus pleei.

His principal works were: Le jeune botaniste, ou entretiens d'un père avec son fils sur la botanique et la physiologie végétale, etc.; (2 vols., Paris, 1812), and Journal de Voyage du Botaniste Auguste Plée, a Travers les Antilles, les Guyanes et le Bresil (2 vols., Paris, 1828). The Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (MNHN) in Paris published a catalog of Plée's collection in three volumes in 1830. Around the 1930s, Gilbert Chinard of Princeton University rediscovered Plée's notes and sketches at MNHN.

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