Joseph-François Soleirol


Joseph-François Soleirol was a French army engineer and amateur botanist.
From 1800 he studied at the École Polytechnique, then embarked on a military career in which he attained the rank of captain in 1807. Later on, he served as an instructor at the École d'application de l'artillerie et du genie in Metz. In 1841 he became a member of the Académie royale de Metz.
In the field of botany he collected numerous plant specimens in Lorraine and has historically been given credit for extensive collections actually made by his younger brother, Henri-Augustin in Corsica, where he spent much of his career, also a military engineer. The plant genus Soleirolia commemorates his name, as do species with the epithet of soleirolii. In 1843 he was co-founder of the Société d'horticulture in Metz. He also had a passion for music, and served as director of the Société philharmonique de Metz.

Selected works