F.-R. de (Fr.-Richard) Tussac

François-Richard de Tussac was a French botanist, naturalist, and writer associated with the Caribbean at the turn of the 19th century. Reliable library and reference records identify him as the author of Flore des Antilles, a major illustrated work on the plants of the Antilles published across multiple volumes between 1808 and 1827.

Sources available here describe him as having lived in Martinique and later worked with a botanical garden in Haiti before returning to France. His best-known achievement was bringing together botanical description, practical information, and detailed illustrations, helping make Caribbean plant life more widely known to European readers.

There is some inconsistency in the records attached to his name: some library entries list him as “Fr.-Richard de Tussac (1786–1827),” while other widely used reference sources identify François Richard de Tussac as 1751–1837. Because of that mismatch, it is safest to focus on the work itself: a remarkable early flora whose images and descriptions remain the reason he is remembered.