Vesque, Julien

Born 1848 in Luxembourg; died 1895 in Paris. French plant physiologist.

From 1874, Vesque lived and worked in Paris. From 1880 he was professor at the Museum of Natural History and from 1883, professor at the Paris Agricultural Institute; he simultaneously taught at the Sorbonne. His principal works are on the study of water regulation in plants. In 1880 he asserted that the reason for the movement of water in the plant is not only transpiration but also root pressure. He also studied the influence of temperature on the absorption of water from the soil. Vesque refuted the existing notion that water moved along the walls of the plant’s vessels and proved that it passes directly through the cavities of the vessels. He invented a number of instruments for investigating transpiration in plants.