ADANSON, MICHEL (1727-1806), French naturalist of Scottish descent, was born at Aix-en-Provence. He travelled in Senegal and published an Histoire naturelle du Senegal (Paris, 1757). Adanson's chief work was done as a botanist. In his Families naturelles des plantes (1763) he opened the way for the natural classification of plants developed later by A. L. de Jussieu in his Genera Plantarum (1780). He also left a vast unfinished encyclopaedia on all known beings and substances, which has never been published.