botany and horticulture. Explorers, diplomats and missionaries were instructed to bring new species of plants to France, where they were acclimated in special gardens at the seaports. In 1764 the larch tree was imported from England to France, soon after the cedar of Lebanon. The dahlia and the chrysanthemum, hydrangea and mimosa were imported from Mexico to France. The reverend Charles Plumier (1646–1704) brought back the magnolia, the fuchsia and the begonia from Latin America. Louis Feuilée (1660–1732) brought the calceolaria, oxalis, opuntia and papaya. Pierre Nicholas Le Chéron d'Incarville (1706–1757) introduced Sophora japonica. Bernard de Jussieu (1699–1777) brought the first cedar to be planted in France (1734), while his brother Joseph de Jussieu (1704–1779) introduced heliotrope. The explorers Bougainville (1729–1811) and La Pérouse (1741–1788) brought back numerous plants which made their way into French gardens. Thanks to their discoveries, French landscape gardens were soon ornamented with exotic trees and colorful flowers not seen before in Europe. Chronology of notable landscape gardens in France The Moulin Joly (1754–72) The Moulin Joly ("Pretty Mill"), designed by the landscape architect Claude-Henri Watelet, was probably the first garden in France designed in the new style. It was located along the Seine between Colombes and Argenteuil. Watelet discovered the site during a walk, bought it, and created a garden which preserved its natural beauty. It consisted of three islands, with a rustic house, a grotto, shelters for animals, a Chinese bridge, a Dutch bridge and a floating bridge, a mill, and a garden with a traditional layout. Watelet, who called the garden "l'île enchantée", wrote that his garden was "in a pastoral style following the long tradition born in antiquity and carried on by the Italian and French Renaissance." Visitors to the garden included the painters Boucher, Hubert Robert, and Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. Marie Antoinette visited several times. Parc Jean-Jacques Rousseau Parc Jean-Jacques Rousseau at Ermenonville was designed by René Louis de Girardin, who spent time as an officer in the army of Louis XV before retiring to his estate. He had visited Italy, Switzerland, Germany and England, and was familiar with the early English landscape gardens. He was particularly inspired by the garden of the British poet William Shenstone, The Leasowes, which became the model for Ermenonville. In 1776 Girardin published a book, (On the Composition of Landscapes), which laid out his theories of gardens, theories that quoted the French translation of a book