The New York Times ran a piece in it’s travel section over the holidays about Georges-Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Buffon. Buffon was, along with Linnaeus, one of the great early botanists and naturalists. Among other things, Buffon built the Jardins des Plantes — that enormous garden on the banks of the Seine. I’d never been there until my last trip to Paris when I stayed down in the 5th arrondissement — it was my last day in Paris and the sun was shining and I was getting a little lonely for green spaces and nature, so I went off…