born Aug. 17, 1699, Lyon

died Nov. 6, 1777, Paris

French botanist who founded a method of plant classification based on the anatomical characters of the plant embryo. After studying medicine at Montpellier, he became in 1722 subdemonstrator of plants in the Jardin du Roi, Paris. In 1759 he was invited to develop a botanical garden at the Petit Trianon at Versailles. His arrangement of the plants there reflected the ideas of the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus but was the beginning of a system that his nephew, Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, later developed into a new system of plant classification. Bernard was a brother of Antoine and Joseph.