Michel Gandoger

Who was Michel Gandoger?

Abbé Jean Michel Gandoger, was a French botanist and mycologist. Gandoger was born in Arnas, the son of a wealthy vineyard owner in the Beaujolais region. Although he took holy orders at the age of 26, he devoted his life to the study of botany, specializing in the genus Rosa. He travelled throughout the Mediterranean region, notably Crete, Spain, Portugal, and Algeria, amassing a herbarium of over 800,000 specimens, now kept at the Jardin botanique de Lyon. However, he is notorious for having published thousands of plant species that are no longer accepted. Gandoger died at Arnas in 1926.

Father J B Charbonnel published an obituary in the Bulletin de la Societe botanique de France, which lists Gandoger's many publications. Plants with the specific epithet of gandogeri are named after him, an example being Carex gandogeri.

NB: Gandoger was originally known by the abbreviation Gdgr.