Argent, Graham Charles George   (1941 - 2019)

Born: 15 May 1941 in Hertfordshire, UK. Died: 24 April 2019 in Ullapool, aged 78.

After earning an undergraduate degree in botany at the University of Leicester (1963), he obtained a PhD on the taxonomy of West African mosses from the University of Wales, Bangor (1969).

George's first job after obtaining his Ph.D. was as a Research Fellow for the New Guinea Biological Foundation from 1969 to 1973, based in Lae. The New Guinea Biological Foundation, begun in the 1960s, was a forerunner to today's Australia and Pacific Science Foundation.

George's job was to collect and study the genetic diversity of bananas in Papua New Guinea which involved a lot of travel and then the propagation and study of these collections at the University of Technology, Lae.

Following his appointment as Tropical Botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, in 1974, he took up the study of Rhododendron, the vireyas (subg. Vireya) of Southeast Asia in particular, an interest he maintained beyond his retirement from RBG Edinburgh in 2004.

Source: Extracted from:
Obituary: George Argent (1941-2019) in Australasian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter 179 (June 2019) p.36
https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/obituary-george-argent-rhododendron-expert-nicknamed-edinburgh-s-indiana-jones-of-botany-1-4930462
Portrait Photo: Extracted from: https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/17675754.obituary-george-argent-rhododendron-expert-at-royal-botanic-gardens-of-edinburgh/.

Collecting localities for 'Argent, G.' from AVH (2022)

Data from 134 specimens in Australian herbaria