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 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 ...

explorer Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

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 ...

. 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 t ...

''. Delavay was born in

Les Gets Les Gets () is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France. The village's first single-person chair lift was opened in 1938 with the first chair lift on Mont Chéry in 1954. Geography L ...

, 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. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

in 1867, serving first in

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

, 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 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 ...

, 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 ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

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 leguminous tree of the genus ''Bauhinia''. It has large thick leaves and striking purplish red flowers. The fragrant, orchid-like flowers are usually a ...

. 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 predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

collector, sending over 200,000

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant 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 sheet of paper (called ...

specimens back to France, from which numerous new

genera Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...

and over 1,500 new

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

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 and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle 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 loc ...

. From 1899 to 1890, Franchet released"''

Plantae Delavayanae ''Plantae Delavayanae: Plants from China collected in Yunnan by Father Delavay.'' is a book by Adrien René Franchet and Père Jean Marie Delavay, with Franchet describing and establishing the taxonomy for flora found by Delavay in Yunnan. Backgr ...

: 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 ''Abies delavayi'', the Delavay's silver-fir or Delavay's fir, is a species of fir, native to Yunnan in southwest China and adjoining border areas in southeastern Tibet, far northeastern India, northern Myanmar, and far northwestern Vietnam. It ...

'', Delavay's Magnolia ''

Magnolia delavayi ''Magnolia delavayi'' is a species of flowering plant in the genus ''Magnolia''. It is known by the common names of Chinese evergreen magnolia or Delavay's magnolia. It was named after Father Delavay, French Catholic missionary in China, who ...

'' and Delavay's Peony ''

Paeonia delavayi ''Paeonia delavayi'' is a low woody shrub belonging to the peonies, that 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. It ...

''.

References

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