Gévaudan Museum / e-ReColNat Infrastructure

Its author, Théodose Cyriaque Prost (1779-1848) was the post office director in Mende. From 1805, he started to herborize around Mende, and then across all Lozère, not only plants, but also mosses and lichens. This rich and rather exhaustive collection represent a comprehensive catalogue of the Lozère flora between 1820 and 1840.

Great explorer of the Lozère area, Prost corresponded with several other renowned botanists (Sternberg, Jordan ou le Montpelliérain De Candolle…). He is often quoted in flora and in the works of botanists of this period (Botanicon gallicum, Catalogue raisonné des plantes vasculaires du plateau central de la France…). The Prost Herbarium of Mende includes plants mostly from his personal collects, but also from exchanges with other botanists. It incorporates well-conditioned and complete samples.

Collected since the early 19th century, the samples are mostly phanerogams, with a significant portion of pteridophytes. It contains a lot of taxa now considered as threatened, as well as new taxa that botanists named after Prost (Saxifraga prostii, Iberis prostii, Galium prostii…).

Interests:

The Prost Herbarium is of great scientific significance in terms of the quality of the determinations, the information on the evolution of the Lozère flora, and of other taxa new to the flora of this period. Moreover, this Herbarium is still in an excellent preservation state, and kept in exceptional material and systematic layout. It is distributed into 48 numbered boxes, that come with a classification table by lockers, orders, and families of plants. It is also of historical interest (old herbarium from the early 19th century). It is an herbarium of departmental interest of rather high quality.

This Herbarium is the property of the Société des lettres, sciences et arts de la Lozère (The Lozère literature, sciences, and arts Society), and belongs to the Ignon-Fabre Museum “Musée de France”.

bibliographic note Loret, H., 1861. L’herbier de la Lozère et M. Prost. Ignon, Mende : 54p.

Contact
Nadia HARABASZ :
museepatrimoine@mende.fr
04 66 49 85 96 ou 97