Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle (; 15 June 1746 – 18 August 1800) was an 18th-century French botanist and civil servant. Born into an affluent upper-class Parisian family, connections with the French Royal Court secured him the position of Superintendent of Parisian Waters and Forests at the age of twenty-six. In this capacity, L'Héritier conducted various studies of native trees and shrubs, also gaining interest in exotic flora. The abbreviation L'Herit. is also used. Early life Apart from what is stated above, little is known of his early life before his first employment. He appears to have been self-taught in botany, after taking up the superintendency. In 1775 L'Héritier was appointed a magistrate in the Cour des Aides in Paris. This was a court which dealt with tax offences, but under its president Malesherbes it became perhaps the only French government institution to protect ordinary citizens against a corrupt state. Malesherbes himself was a keen botanist, but in the same year (1775) he was forced out of office because he published a scheme to reform the tax system. Also in 1775, L'Héritier married Thérèse-Valère Doré. They had five children in the 19 years until Thérèse-Valère died. With his private wealth and public income, L'Héritier was enabled to pursue his botanical interests as a wealthy amateur. He was a strict follower of the Linnaean system of plant classification. The most influential French botanists of the time - Jussieu, Adanson and others - advocated a more natural system of classification, meaning beauty. L'Héritier soon clashed with them, although he was friends with other scholars such as Georges Cuvier, Pierre Marie Auguste Broussonet and André Thouin. Through these contacts, he corresponded with other botanists such as Joseph Banks and James Edward Smith, in the Linnaean stronghold of England. Around 1783 he conceived the idea of publishing papers on new plant species. To Banks he wrote: "I am still keeping my project secret, in order that this type of work cannot be claimed by our professors" and it is said that he had paid informers among the professional gardeners of Paris in order to be alerted whenever a new species came into flower. Such was the rivalry among botanists at that time, to be able to publish a new species first. The first fascicle (volume) of Stirpes Novae (New Plants) came out in March 1785, the second in January 1786, a third in March