Barrelier, James

, was born at Paris in 1606 and after having gone through a course of study, and taken the degree of licentiate in medicine, he entered into the order of Dominicans in 1635. His talents and his prudence were so conspicuous, that in 1646 he was elected assistant to the general, with whom he made the tour of France, Spain, and Italy. Amidst the avocations of this post, and without neglecting his duties, he found the means of applying himself to the study of botany, to which he seemed to have a natural propensity. He collected a great number of plants and shells, and made drawings of several that had not been known, or but very imperfectly described. He had undertaken a general history of plants, which he intended to entitle “Hortus Mundi,” or “Orbis Botanicus,” and was employed on it with the utmost diligence, when an asthma put an end to his labours in 1673, at the age of sixty-seven. All that could be collected of this “work was published by Ant. de Jussieu, with a life of the author, under the title” Plantæ per Galliam, Hispaimim, et Italiani observatæ, et iconibus reneis exhibitce," Paris, 1714, folio, a valuable contribution to a botanical library, but by no means correct. ²