Although the Relation hints at sympathy for the ‘transmutationist’ ideas of Lamarck, Labillardière did not develop any evolutionary notions based on his field research­. Nevertheless, his books and articles had considerable taxonomic, systematic, biogeographic and morphological significance, and it was upon such foundations that later evolutionary ecology was built. In an age when the discovery of new species and genera was often seen as the apogee of botanical pursuit, Labillardière was accorded ample kudos. Even today, some fifty of the plant genera he established survive. However, in his Relation and in a number of scientific papers, Labillardière ventured beyond a mere cataloguing of nature. He had a strong interest in applied botany and his writings contain numerous observations on subjects such as timber, plant fibres, food crops and herbal pharmacology. They also include studies of significant aspects of animal behaviour and physiology. And aside from his commercial-military strategic perceptions — such as the advantages offered by the D’Entrecasteaux Channel for a trading maritime power, or the value of cultivating New Zealand flax for naval cordage - Labillardière’s applied observations often had enduring ethnological significance. Furthermore, as an ethnographer he attempted to apply empirical methods to record the customs and social structures of indigenous communities he encountered in Australia and the Pacific. Arguably his vocabularies of native languages, as keys to cultural understanding, also beg comparison with his systematic botanical descriptions, representing as they do a necessary ordering of the natural world on the threshold of modern ecological and evolutionary understanding.