François GUILLOT's collection of seed

 

 

 

François GUILLOT (1937-2007)

François GUILLOT was interested very early in the natural sciences: biology, mineralogy, but especially botany.
He regretted not having followed Superior Agricultural studies and endeavored to study for himself everything put at his disposal by nature and by his research.
That's how he started his collections at 25 years old :

- first a xylotheque, assembling more than 250 logs, from trees harvested on French soil, listed and presented with a whistle cut to make visible the veins and the colors of the wood,

- then the plants, in a herbarium, current property of the Museum of natural history of Angers,

- and then the seed collection, presented here, which completes this study of the life of plants. .

Professionally, from 1960, he made his career in the development of computing, which was then at its beginnings, far from his dreams of youth.
This explains the passion and the pleasure that this solitary character experienced for his collections and all these achievements.

Today, as an ironic twist of history, it is the descendants of those very computers
which help highlight his achievements.

His seed collection

Most of the seeds were harvested from 1955 to 2000 in the Paris region, around Colombes where he lived.
Some were harvested during travel and holidays, especially in southern and central France.
In 2008, after his death, his wife donated the herbarium and the seed collection to the
                 Département botanique du Muséum d'histoire Naturelle d'Angers.
A important work of classification and repackaging has been done since then, but until now the consultation has remained confidential.
One can hope that the digialised presentation of this collection,
will give it an easy and almost instantaneous accessibility, impossible until now,
and that other collections will continue to be added.