Oct 14, Part 13 - Rue Linne, Cuvier Fountain, and the entrance to the Jardin des Plantes, Paris

We came out of the very short Rue des Arenes into the Rue Linné, named for the Swedish botanist Carl Von Linné (Carolus Linnaeus), who is most famous for coming up with the idea of binomial nomenclature - the naming of species using two Latinized names, for example Tapirus terrestris for the lowland tapir. I think my heart quickened when we got here. There is something about the history of animals, taxonomy, paleontology, evolution, etc., that I was born to appreciate. And we were now on the outskirts of zoology mecca in the greater sense of the disciplines that came into play.

We turned right for a few paces, and soon came to this fountain dedicated to Georges Cuvier, another of the gods in the Pantheon of zoological history. The street curving away to the building with blood-red vines also bears Cuvier's name. Especially in those early years, scientists never did just one thing, and one of Cuvier's, claims to fame was establishing extinction as a fact after years of debate, although he blamed it on catastrophic events. He also established the science of comparative anatomy and set the stage for vertebrate paleontology; he taught animal anatomy at the National Museum of Natural History near here and he died at 43 Rue Cuvier. There is an interesting article about him on the web site of UC Berkeley. Cuvier never embraced evolution, believing that an animal would die if its structure changed. You can also see another view of the fountain here.

When you click on the photo above, you can see more and more animals. They don't seem to stop. At the far left is a sea turtle with a small frog nearby. To the left of the human figure an owl and the rump end of a majestic lion. And what is that thing on the back of the crocodile?

The sculptor seems to have liked animals with lots of teeth. I wouldn't want to tangle with this fish.

Below the human figure is a frieze with heads on it. Most of them are animals.

I'm not sure what the human is doing here. The nose looks a little like Cuvier's, but I haven't seen a picture of him yet with a beard, and I have not read up on the symbolism of the fountain.

Here's a nice snake-like thing with a fish, a lobster, a starfish, and a couple of shells.

Number 20 Rue Cuvier is now a restaurant, and you can see a bit of the sign on the right. The standing placard is about Cuvier. It's in French, of course, and would take a long time for me to decipher. I do have a bigger photo of it, though. If you enlarge this picture you may not be able to read it, but you will be able to see the lizard shapes between the glass panels of the door. They're a nice touch!

And here, across the street from Cuvier's fountain, is the entrance to the Jardin des Plantes - it's a beautiful complex including a small zoo, a number of science buildings, and well-labelled gardens. It's also the heart of zoology in France, and certainly one of the most important cradles of zoology for the whole world.

This is me in front of the gate. The light of day is already starting to fade, but I wasn't going to miss this. We began to wonder if the zoo would be open and if they had tapirs. The last time I was here, I visited with the Curator of Mammals, and they were excitedly beginning to plan an exhibit for a pair of Asian tapirs they were hoping to get within the next couple of years.

Go to Part 14

October 14, Part 14 - There's lots to see in the southwest corner of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris

I didn't know what this was, I just took a photo because it looked nice. It's the back of the old Faculty of Sciences Annex. The front is on Rue Cuvier. It seems the building used to look like this. There's a lot of history here, and I haven't taken time to sort it out. It may be the building where the Curies discovered radium. There is also a HUGE modern science complex on the other side of Rue Cuvier, but we didn't go that way, we had entered the park instead for some history and the quiet gardens.

One of the first things we came to was this statue of Michel Eugène Chevreul, who I had never heard of. He was a chemist who worked on fatty acids. Sounds exciting, yes? As it turns out he influenced a lot of ideas, including the color theory used by the Impressionists. He is also credited with discovering margarine and designing an early form of soap. He lived to be 102 years old and also pioneered studies in gerontology. I thought it was a cool statue, so I'm including an enlargement of Michel Eugène.

Our margarine guy stands forever on a pedestal looking at this view (below) of the Amphitheatre.

The place was packed for some event with men in suits. As it had been built to hold 600 people, there was probably room for all. This is the side of the building, and the front entrance is to the right. Online I found an old engraving of the outside of the building. It's the top picture on this page; click to enlarge when you get there. And here is a file where you can see a number of old engravings of the gardens and buildings in the Jardin des Plantes, including one of the interior of the amphitheatre.

A few paces away is the Pavillion Buffon, which I think is now an administration building, and apparently has been so for many years. The next two photos show different views of the same building. I liked the colors, and I also liked the giraffe.

Buffon, who the building was named for, managed the gardens for many years and was one of France's early scientific giants.

We backtracked a little and thought we'd climb the small hill by way of a circular walkway, but we realized that we had a lot to see here and the light was fading. I took a photo of this maribou stork at the point where we turned back onto the main walkway.

This is Buffon's building again on the left. Now we're headed toward the zoo.

Along the way, we encountered the statue below.

Again, I didn't know who it was except for the name carved into it. Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was a writer and botanist. He's the top figure in the sculpture, with two of his most famous characters, Paul and Virginie, shown below. In about 1792 and 1793, during the French Revolution, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre formulated the idea to make a zoo in the Jardin des Plantes when a number of laws and situations coincided to render it a more viable idea than keeping the menagerie at Versailles. In addition, scientists here could learn from observing living animals instead of dead and dissected ones. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was a proponent of keeping the animals in conditions as close to their natural ways of life as possible. He was among the first to consider the needs of the animals rather than the needs of the humans who wished to keep them. In the statue above, Jacques-Henry Bernardin de Saint-Pierre is leaning on his arm, probably in contemplation. Note that the trunk of the tree behind him is also resting - perhaps with empathy. I couldn't guess if it's just tired or is also contemplating.

Go to Part 15

Oct 14, Part 15 - Near the Zoo in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris

Well, we were here, finally! This is the zoo. But it was a few minutes past closing time, and of course, we couldn't go in. I took a picture of the sign, because - well, the zoo at the Jardin des Plantes is historic and famous, and I'd read about it so many times. And it's a nice place. I had also visited before, but it would have been fun to go again. However, since it hadn't been our main destination for the day, we chalked it up as a fairly minor disappointment and continued to explore. I thought the sign was striking in its simplicity, nestled here among the evergreens.

Obviously - the history of the zoo in French.

This building is right near the entrance to the zoo. It's the Galleries of Comparative Anatomy. I don't know if it's that old or what the history is. Below is a view of the main door.

This is the only picture I got of an actual animal at the zoo - a black swan. It's out of focus. We were still moving along pretty fast. I knew we had a lot to see and not much time left to see it in the light. I thought it was sort of funny that this swan was black, and that a white swan on a black background had figured prominently a day and a half ago (or whatever, accounting for the time difference; it seemed like another world already).

This was one of the first formal gardens we came to. I'm not sure if it's part of the Alpine Garden or not. We didn't go in. That's the mantra for awhile. There was still a lot to see.

One of the larger walkways was named after Cuvier.

I love the orange shirt and red hair contrasted with the greenhouse.

Here's an entrance to the Alpine Garden. Once more, we didn't go in. You could spend a long time enjoying these wonderful gardens.

I took this photo just past the greenhouse, but I can't quite place it on Google Earth. I don't find a building where this had to have been taken. I wish I could hop a plane and go check it out - and maybe stay for a few weeks - or months! I like the windows and I like the plant-form signs they had in the garden. We're nearly to the Natural History Museum now. It's part of this incredible and incredibly historic complex that's called the Jardin des Plantes. . . .

Go to Part 16

Oct 14, Part 16 - Museum of Natural History and gardens in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris

The narrow path past the greenhouse and the Alpine garden opened into the glorious botanical mall in front of the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution (aka the Natural History Museum). It was after hours, and we couldn't visit the museum, unfortunately. But it was simply delightful to be here. I'd seen the museum in 2002, and it would have been fun to see it again with Lee. It's a several-hour project, though, as are the other attractions in the garden. The museum was newly renovated with an all-new cutting-edge central display around the turn of the 21st Century. It sounds strange, doesn't it? Why not just say around 2000? I suppose we should get used to it. Anyway, the museum is outstanding.

The rows of flowers go on and on.

Here we're part way through the garden, looking back at the Grande Galerie. It wasn't really this dark out. I wanted to expose for the dramatic sky.

I don't know that much about flowers except that I enjoy looking at them.

It was interesting to see so much color in the flowers contrasted with the fall season and the changing leaves.

Go to Part 17

I'm using this post for Floral Friday on October 2, 2009.

Oct 14, Part 17 - The Dodo Carousel in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris

Beyond the big round tree shedding its fall leaves, we stumbled onto an apparition in the waning light. It was a carousel. Animals! Yeah, a welcome sight. My eyes were bleary from tiredness and the light was fading to the point where you had to look harder to see anything in detail. I watched the colorful giraffes going round and round for awhile before I realized that they weren't giraffes.

And the bird was not an ostrich. Or an emu.

It was a little confusing at first, because here came the gorilla and the panda, but if you look at the bird beyond the gorilla, you'll see the animal the carousel was named for - a dodo bird. Quite extinct. At the end of this post you'll see the sign. I've left the original very large if you click on it, so you can read about the animals (in French). They're not all extinct, but they're either extinct or threatened. The giant bird above is an aepyornis, or elephant bird, from Madagascar (the animal names are here linked to info so you can read about them). The lion behind it is not a typical African lion, but an Atlas or Barbary lion. The gorilla is a mountain gorilla (severely threatened), and of course the giant panda is still with us but very much endangered also.

Here's the panda again, and behind it is a thylacine, or Tasmanian wolf which, very sadly, became extinct as recently as 1936. Note the stripes on its rear end. This is no ordinary wolf, but a marsupial with a mouth that can stretch like a contortionist.

This African elephant has a child riding on its back.

The animal in front is a horned tortoise (Meiolania platyceps).

And here are the giraffe-looking things again, actually sivatheria (sivatherium = singular). Check this out. They're really interesting-looking creatures. The carousel had slowed down now, too, so you might want to click on the photo, because the animals are finally in focus.

And this guy is a glyptodon, a giant ancient relative of today's armadillo.

We know this one. It's a triceratops. With red eyes. I would really have liked to take the carousel home with me.

Here's Lee checking out the information and trying to read the French. He did a pretty good job, but (as I've said already) it was getting dark and we didn't linger over the reading. I took pictures and we moved on through the gardens. I left this photo very large if you want to click on it.

Go to Part 18

Oct 14, Part 18 - Paleontology, Jardin des Plantes, Paris

We ambled through the park over to the mineralogy and paleontology buildings. The paleontology museum, seen here, is one of my favorite places, maybe partly because I can only imagine what it's like to visit. It's never been open when I've been in the park. In fact, I thought for a long time it was closed to the public, and now that I've seen photos online, I'm sure I need to go back to Paris just to see it!

Here's another view of the long building as we walked through the arcade of trees (below) heading toward the entrance to this building and to the park.

These green installations ran nearly the length of the park, telling about the various ages in the Earth's history. This one says 3500 million years - the beginning of life on Earth.

And here's one of Earth's early inhabitants, Stegosaurus, along with "archaic" plants, as the sign tells us in the photo below.

This guy is the greeter outside the paleontology museum. I don't remember his name. Below is the main entrance.

I love this door. Not much more needs to be said. Too bad the place was closed.

Directly above the entrance.

A window on the facade of the building decorated with ancient crabs and lizards.

There was a lobster-looking thing above, but if you look at it, it looks more like a cross between a horseshoe crab (which is an ancient form, I think) and a lobster.

I can't say I love the McDonald's placed here, but in a strange way (absurdly, not artistically or culturally) I do love the juxtaposition.

Does the term "super-size" come to mind? I wonder what Buffon would have though of the McDonald's on the street named after him? Oh well, maybe he would have liked yucky burgers - as long as they aren't selling mammoth burgers. In Europe, most of the golden arches don't reach to the sky; they're built into the ground level of existing buildings with something else above. Buffon, by the way, is well placed near this mammoth. He (Buffon) openly challenged a belief held in his time and espoused by the church, that the Earth was no older than 6,000 years. The mammoth has nice eyes - they look alive.

Go to Part 19