McClellan, J.E. 2004 Andre Michaux and French botanical networks at the end of the old regime.. Castanea Suppl. S: 69-74.

Notes: This paper situates Andre Michaux's American career in the larger context of contemporary French botanical institutions. An extensive set of botanical gardens in metropolitan France included the Jardin du Roi (1635) in Paris and several dozen other gardens spread throughout the provinces. A complementary system of botanical gardens and horticultural stations arose outside the Metropolis in the colonies. In the 1750s, French authorities established spice cultivation in the Indian-Ocean settlements on he de France (Mauritius) and Ile Bourbon (Reunion). By the 1770s and 1780s, royal botanical gardens had spread to Cayenne, Guadeloupe, and Saint-Domingue (Haiti) in the New World. In the 1780s, the Ministry of the Navy undertook several botanical transfers from the Indian Ocean to the Americas with the aim of implanting commercial cultivations in the New World. Andre Michaux's expedition to North America formed part of this larger network. Had the French Revolution not intervened, the American gardens founded by Andre Michaux might have been further swept up in this unprecedented intercontinental system of French botanical stations. Dactylopius coccus is among the species discussed.