Camille Montagne

Who was Camille Montagne?

Jean Pierre François Camille Montagne was a French military physician and botanist who specialized in the fields of bryology and mycology. He was born in the commune of Vaudoy in the department of Seine-et-Marne.

At the age of 14, Montagne joined the French navy, and took part in Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. In 1802 he returned to France to study medicine, and two years later became a military surgeon. In 1832, at the age of 48 he retired from military service to concentrate on the study of cryptogams.

In 1845 he was one of the first scientists to provide a description of Phytophthora infestans, a potato blight fungus he referred to as Botrytis infestans. Montagne is also known for investigations of mycological species native to Guyane.

He contributed numerous articles to the Archives de Botanique and the Annales des Sciences naturelles, and in 1853 was elected a member of the Académie des sciences. Swedish mycologist Elias Magnus Fries named the genera Montagnaea and Montagnites after Camille Montagne. He died in Paris on December 5, 1866.