''Plantae Delavayanae: Plants from China collected in Yunnan by Father Delavay.'' is a book by

Adrien René Franchet Adrien René Franchet (21 April 1834 in Pezou – 15 February 1900 in Paris) was a French botanist, based at the Paris Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle. He is noted for his extensive work describing the flora of China and Japan, base ...

and

Père Jean Marie Delavay Père Jean-Marie Delavay (28 December 1834 – 31 December 1895) was a French missionary, explorer and botanist. He was perhaps the first Western explorer of the region which is now encompassed by the ''Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protecte ...

, with Franchet describing and establishing the taxonomy for

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. E ...

found by Delavay in

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

Background

was a missionary sent to China for Missions Etrangères de Paris (Foreign Missions of Paris) on an extended assignment in Yunnan. While in France in 1881, he met Père

Armand David Father Armand David (7 September 1826, Espelette – 10 November 1900, Paris) was a Lazarist missionary Catholic priest as well as a zoologist and a botanist. Several species, such as Père David's deer, are named after him — be ...

, a natural history collector and fellow missionary, and was persuaded to take up David's role of collecting plant specimens in China for the

Paris Museum of Natural History The French National Museum of Natural History, known in French as the ' (abbreviation MNHN), is the national natural history museum of France and a ' of higher education part of Sorbonne Universities. The main museum, with four galleries, is loca ...

. His meticulous methodology led to a prolific collection of plants, which included 200,000 specimens of 4,000 distinct species of flora. As Delavay did not have extensive training on botany, he would collect specimen with even the most minor of differences, which led to the discovery of 1,500 new species of plants within his collections. His work was only slowed when he contracted the bubonic plague in 1888, from which he only partially recovered. Much of Delavay's collections that were sent to the Paris Museum of Natural History were processed by Adrien René Franchet. Franchet was a trained botanist focused on the authorship of taxonomy for the plant specimens arriving at the museum. Franchet primarily worked on the taxonomy of the collections from French missionaries in China and Japan, including Delavay, David,

Paul Guillaume Farges Father Paul Guillaume Farges (1844–1912) was a French Catholic missionary, botanist and plant collector, based for much of his life (from 1867) in China, serving at Chongqing from 1892 until his death. He collected over 4,000 plant specimens, ...

, and

Jean-André Soulié Jean-André is a French masculine given name. It may refer to: * Jean-André Cuoq (1821–1898), French philologist * Jean-André Deluc (1727–1817), Swiss geologist and meteorologist * Jean-André Mongez (1750–1788), French priest and mineral ...

. Franchet published much of his taxonomy work in academic journals, including "Les Primula du Yun-nan" for ''Bulletin de la Société botanique de France'' in 1885.

Description

From 1889 to 1890, Franchet would publish ''Plantae Delavayanae. Plantes de Chine recueillies au Yun-nan par l'abbé Delavay''. "Plantae Delavayanae: Plants from China collected in Yunnan by Father Delavay" is a book focused on the taxonomy of Père Jean Marie Delavay's flora collection. The text is written in Latin. The book consists of 240 pages of text and 45 plates of illustrations. The original copy consisted of three fascicles, with pages 1-80 and plates 1-15 released in 1889; pages 81-160 and plates 16-30 later released in 1889; and pages 161-240 and plates 31-45 released in 1890. The book provided considerable credibility to Delavay's work in the field of botany. The International Plant Names Index acknowledges that 142 plant names were originally published in the "Pl. Delavay".

References

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External links

* Full Scan of the Original Book, including illustrations: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/41440#page/234/mode/1up Florae (publication) Botany Flora of China