Père Jean-Marie Delavay (28 December 1834 – 31 December 1895) was a French

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 ...

explorer Exploration is the process of exploring, an activity which has some Expectation (epistemic), expectation of Discovery (observation), discovery. Organised exploration is largely a human activity, but exploratory activity is common to most organis ...

and

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 ...

. He was perhaps the first Western explorer of the region which is now encompassed by the ''

Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas The Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas () is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Yunnan province, China. It lies within the drainage basins of the upper reaches of the Jinsha (Yangtze), Lancang (Mekong) and Nujiang ( Salween) rivers, in ...

''. Delavay was born in

Les Gets Les Gets (, ) is a commune in the department of Haute-Savoie, in the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, southeastern France.

, Haute-Savoie, in 1834. As a missionary for Missions Etrangères de Paris (Foreign Missions of Paris) he was sent to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

in 1867, serving first in

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

, then moving to north-western Yunnan. While in France in 1881, on a break from his duties, Delavay met the natural history collector and fellow missionary Père

Armand David Armand David, CM (7 September 1826, Espelette – 10 November 1900, Paris) was a Lazarist missionary Catholic priest as well as a zoologist and a botanist from the French Basque Country. Several species, such as Père David's deer ...

, who had made his final collecting expedition in China in the 1870s. David encouraged Delavay to continue his collecting work and send specimens to the Paris Museum of Natural History. In 1888 he contracted bubonic plague; he survived the initial onslaught of the disease, but never fully recovered. This did not stop his explorations, however, eventually he travelled to

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

to recuperate, collecting plants all the way. It was while in Hong Kong that he discovered what is now the territories emblem, the Hong Kong orchid tree

Bauhinia × blakeana ''Bauhinia'' × ''blakeana'' ( ross), commonly called the Hong Kong orchid tree, is a Hybrid (biology)#In plants, hybrid legume, leguminous tree of the genus ''Bauhinia''. It has large thick leaves and striking purplish red flowers. The frag ...

. By 1891 it was clear that a more drastic cure was needed, so Delavay returned to France in hopes of gaining a full recovery. Unable to stay away, he returned to China in 1893 and continued his collections, adding another 1550 plants to his already impressive total, but in 1895 he finally succumbed to his illness, and died in Yunnan province aged 61.

Legacy

Delavay was an avid

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

collector, sending over 200,000

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant biological specimen, specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sh ...

specimens back to France, from which numerous new

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

and over 1,500 new

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

were described, many 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 ...

of the

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History ( ; abbr. MNHN) is the national natural history museum of France and a of higher education part of Sorbonne University. The main museum, with four galleries, is located in Paris, France, within the Ja ...

. From 1899 to 1890, Franchet released"'' Plantae Delavayanae: Plants from China collected in Yunnan by Father Delavay''", which published 142 original plant names among the many discovered by Delavay.

Eponymy

Delavay is commemorated in the names of several plants, including Delavay's Fir '' Abies delavayi'', Delavay's Magnolia '' Magnolia delavayi'' and Delavay's Peony ''

Paeonia delavayi ''Paeonia delavayi'' is a low woody shrub belonging to the peony family, and is endemic to China. The vernacular name in China is 滇牡丹 (diān mǔdan). In English it is called Delavay's tree peony, Delavay peony, Dian peony, and dian mu dan. ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Delavay, Pere Jean Marie 1834 births 1895 deaths People from Haute-Savoie People from the Kingdom of Sardinia Roman Catholic missionaries in China Roman Catholic missionaries in Tibet French expatriates in Tibet 19th-century French botanists Botanists active in China 19th-century French explorers French missionaries in China Missionary botanists