Bernard de Jussieu (August 17, 1699 - November 6, 1777) was a French naturalist. He took a medical degree at Montpellier and began practice in 1720, but finding the work uncongenial he gladly accepted a position as sub-demonstrator of plants in the Jardin des Plantes. Long before Abraham Trembley published his Histoire des polypes d'eau douce, Jussieu maintained the doctrine that these organisms were in fact animals, and not the flowers of marine plants, which was the notion at the time. In 1759 he arranged the plants in the royal garden of the Trianon in the Palace of Versailles, according to his own scheme of classification. He cared little for the credit of enunciating new discoveries, so long as the facts were made public. He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1749. He died in 1777 at the age of 78. Engraving from "Vies des savants illustres" by Louis Figuier. This image has been color enhanced.