Reverend The Reverend is an style (manner of address), honorific style most often placed before the names of Christian clergy and Minister of religion, ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and c ...

Richard Baron (8 September 1847 – 12 October 1907) was an English

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which 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.Tho ...

and

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

who worked and lived in

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

from 1872 to 1907. Baron attended

Lancashire College Lancashire Adult Learning is an adult education college located in Lancashire, England . Courses offered by the college are aimed primarily at adult learners rather than recent school leavers, and include short courses, weekly courses, ESOL pro ...

and was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform va ...

1872 in Kendal. During his mission in Madagascar from 1872 onwards, he travelled extensively and collected a large number of plants; he sent roughly 12,000 specimens to the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, and also deposited collections in other herbaria. He may have discovered up to 1000 new plant species. Besides botany, Baron was also interested in

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...

and collected

amphibians Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arbore ...

. He quickly learned Malagasy, and published the first Malagasy-language textbooks on plants and geology. Together with James Sibree, Jr., another missionary, he edited the English-language journal '' Antananarivo Annual''. His ''Compendium des plantes malgaches'' was the first summary of the

vascular plant Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes () or collectively Tracheophyta (), form a large group of land plants ( accepted known species) that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They al ...

species known from Madagascar. It was compiled in several volumes from 1900 to 1906 and would eventually list over 4700 species and varieties in 970 genera. Baron died in 1907 from a fever attack while he was in England. Several Malagasy taxa were named after him, including the plant genera ''

Baronia ''Baronia brevicornis'', commonly known as the short-horned baronia, is a species of butterfly in the monotypic genus ''Baronia'' and is placed in a subfamily of its own, the Baroniinae, a sister group of the remainder of the swallowtail butterf ...

'', ''

Baroniella ''Baroniella'' is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Apocynaceae Apocynaceae (from ''Apocynum'', Greek for "dog-away") is a family of flowering plants that includes trees, shrubs, herbs, stem succulents, and vines, commonly k ...

'', and '' Neobaronia''.

Bibliography

* 1882: ''From Ambatondrazaka to Fenoarivo'', Antananarivo Annual: 75–94 * 1882: ''Botany, na filazana ny amy ny zava-maniry sy ny fombany'', L.M.S. College, Antananarivo * 1882: ''Twelve Hundred Miles in a Palanquin'', Antananarivo Annual: 434–458 * 1887: ''Over New Ground: A Journey to Mandritsara and the North-West Coast'', Antananarivo Annual: 261–282 * 1889
''The Flora of Madagascar''
Journal of the Linnaean Society, Botany 42: 246–294. * 1889: ''Notes on the Geology of Madagascar'' Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society:305–331. * 1890: ''A Malagasy forest'', Antananarivo Annual: 196–211 * 1890: ''Ten Years Review of Mission Work in Madagascar, 1880-1890'' * 1904, with Mouneyres: ''Rapport sur une tournée géologique effectuée en 1903 dans le Nord et le Nord-Ouest de Madagascar'', Bulletin Économique de Madagascar: 1–20 * 1900–1906: ''Compendium des plantes malgaches''

Fellowships

*Fellow of the Linnean Society, 1882 *Fellow of the

Geological Society The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

, 1889 *Member of the ''

Académie Malgache The Malagasy Academy (''Académie Malgache'') is a public institution in Madagascar responsible for the study of the country's culture and customs, including studies in Madagascar's linguistics, ethnology and sociology, as well as literary, artisti ...

'', 1902

References

External links

*Archive papers of Richard Baron are held b
SOAS Special Collections
Digitised items from the collection are available to vie
here
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baron, Richard English botanists 1847 births 1907 deaths Fellows of the Linnean Society of London Fellows of the Geological Society of London