Bornet studied medicine in Paris, and in 1886 became a member of the French Académie des sciences. With Gustave Thuret, he was co-author of Notes algologiques (1876-1880) and the Études phycologiques (1878), both works being published after Thuret's death in 1875.[2] He helped establish the nature of lichens and was the first to find the reproductive process of red algae.[3] In the field of lichenology, he wrote Recherches sur les gonidies des lichens (1873). With Charles Flahault, he published on Nostocaceae: Revision des Nostocacées héterocystées (1886–88).
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