Father Paul Guillaume Farges (1844–1912) was a French

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

and plant collector, based for much of his life (from 1867) in China, serving at

Chongqing ChongqingPostal Romanization, Previously romanized as Chungking ();. is a direct-administered municipality in Southwestern China. Chongqing is one of the four direct-administered municipalities under the State Council of the People's Republi ...

from 1892 until his death. He collected over 4,000 plant specimens, including numerous species new to science, which were sent back to the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, where they were named and described by Adrien Franchet. His name is commemorated in several plants, including '' Abies fargesii'', '' Corylus fargesii'', ''

Decaisnea fargesii ''Decaisnea fargesii'', the blue sausage fruit, blue bean shrub, or dead men's fingers, is a member of the family Lardizabalaceae, and is native to Nepal, Tibet and China. It is a deciduous shrub that grows to 4 m tall and broad, but may achieve ...

'', '' Salix fargesii'', and '' Torreya fargesii''. Most notably, the bamboo genus ''

Fargesia ''Fargesia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the Poaceae, grass family. These bamboos are native primarily to China, with a few species in Vietnam and in the eastern Himalayas. Some species are cultivated as ornamentals, with common names inclu ...

'' is named for him.

References

19th-century French botanists Botanists active in China Roman Catholic missionaries in Sichuan Roman Catholic missionaries in Tibet French expatriates in Tibet 1844 births 1912 deaths Missionary botanists 20th-century French botanists Catholic Church in Chongqing {{France-botanist-stub

See also

References