When an amateur is right and the great Jussieu and Réumur are wrong: is coral an animal or a plant?
Coral has always been considered a plant. Logically it looks like a tree with roots. The ancients Aristotle, or Pliny the elder had classified it like a plant. In 1726, a coral-loving doctor, living in Gadeloupe- Jean-André Peyssonnel submitted an iconoclastic article suggesting that it is an animal. The academy refused its publication and Réaumur, … Read more
