Jean-Nicolas Céré

Jean-Nicolas Céré (20 August 1737 – 2 May 1810) was a French botanist and agronomist born on the Indian Ocean Isle de France (now Mauritius) but educated in Brittany and Paris. On the Isle de France, he was befriended by Pierre Poivre (1719–1786), administrator of the Isle de France and Ile Bourbon (Réunion), who he assisted in the cultivation of spices. When Poivre was recalled to France in 1773, Céré was appointed Director of the Royal Garden at Monplaisir (now Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Garden), a position he held from 1775 to the time of his death in 1810.

During his time on the island, Céré encouraged plant exchange, making considerable contribution to economic botany by sending living plants to many countries, raising numerous peppers, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg trees which he distributed to the neighbouring French islands, and also introducing to Mauritius useful plants from Malaysia, America, China and elsewhere.

Biography Details of Céré's life, on which the following account is based, have been researched by J. Deleuze.

Jean-Nicolas Céré was the son of François-Toussaint Céré, a naval officer who, according to the memoirs of Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais, was at the age of five posted to France to study, his father having died in Martinique. He arrived at Brest as a ward of the state. For several years he was a student at the College of Valves, finishing his studies in Paris. In 1757, he served in two campaigns under the command of Count Anne Antoine d'Aché being promoted to officer. In 1759 he settled on the Isle de France, his father having left him a considerable fortune. During his directorship it was renamed Jardin Royal. and hosted Franz Boos, botanist of Schönbrunn, in 1787–1788. Then he hosted Joseph Martin, from the Jardin du Roy of Paris.

Céré was director of the gardens at the time of a visit to the island in 1795 after the demise of the Bruni d'Entrecasteaux expedition to New Holland in search of La Pérouse. Botanist Labillardière noted that the coco de mer palm (Lodoicea maldivica) from the island of Praslin in the Seychelles (botanically notable for its 'double' coconut, the largest seed in the world) was cultivated at the Pamplemousses gardens where it had been planted in 1769. This remarkable palm had been discovered in 1768–69 on an expedition to the Seychelles organised by Marc-Joseph Marion Dufresne. One reason for the visit would have been to prepare the way for the arrival of Breadfruit plants collected by himself and gardener Félix Delahaye in Tonga and which at that time were being tended by gardener botanist Delahaye in Java in preparation for the journey to Isle de France.

Honours Céré was awarded the medal of the Société d’Agriculture on 28 November 1788.