Obituary of Jean Paul Ferry

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Dear Aroiders:

 

I am very sorry to announce that one of our esteemed IAS members, Geneviève Ferry, aroid specialist at the Nancy Botanical Gardens and Co-Organizer of the 10^th International Aroid Conference in Nancy, France has lost her husband, Jean Paul Ferry.  Jean Paul was a dear friend and colleague and I will dearly miss him. An expert on the Flora of Lorraine Department in France and an excellent gardener, Jean Paul worked for many years at the Nancy Botanical Gardens in Nancy and was the Director of the Alpine Gardens in Chitelet from 1967 until 1995 and also a Curator at the Nancy Botanical Gardens from 1974 until 1995. He formally retired from the botanical gardens in February 2008. The IAS group visited the Chitelet Gardens on a field trip following the Nancy Conference and Jean Paul narrated in the bus along the way, describing the highlights of the vegetation. Later he showed us the aroid populations of those Alpine Gardens and attended the great banquet in the massive reception hall of the town hall on Place Stanislaus.  Those of you who attended the Nancy Conference will remember him at those meetings.  Jean Paul had been suffering for several years from cancer and finally succumbed to this disease on Saturday, August 10^th.  I received this sad news only moments before my departure from the 7^th Colombian Botanical Congress in Ibague, Colombia where I also attended the 1^st Colombian Aroid Conference.  As a member of the Board of the IAS, I wish to express our condolences to Geneviève and to their daughters, Camille and Lucie.  Jean Paul was an excellent French chef and he prepared wonderful meals and served the best wine. We sat and talked for hours after dinner about subjects of his interest, speaking mostly in German, the only language we had in common. Jean Paul will be honored by Anthurium jeanpaulii Croat, a species named in his honor.  May he rest in the peace of God. 

 

Kindest Regards,

Tom Croat