Jean Michel Claude Richard

Who was Jean Michel Claude Richard?

Jean Michel Claude Richard was a noted French botanist and plant collector active in Senegal, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Réunion, and a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur.

Richard was born in Volon, Haute-Saône. He was sent to Senegal in 1816 as the colony's gardener-in-chief, but served without obvious distinction until the arrival in 1822 of Baron Jacques-François Roger who entrusted to Richard the creation of an experimental garden on the left bank of the Sénégal River, near the village of Nghiao, and named it Richard Toll. Richard was responsible for all plants, buildings, and facilities, and under his direction a number of new species were introduced to Senegal, including bananas, manioc, oranges, sugar cane, and coffee. In February 1824 Richard was sent to Cayenne. Directed on July 30, 1824 to keep a diary of his experiences, he developed a catalog of the garden's species, and left Senegal in 1825.

In January 1831 Richard became second director of the Jardin du Roy in the Île Bourbon, succeeding Nicolas Bréon. Under his leadership the garden achieved its golden age. He introduced some 3,000 plant species to the colony, by his reckoning, while studying cryptogams, ferns, and orchids. He also sent lichens from Mauritius to the German specialist Ferdinand Christian Gustav Arnold.