My website is under construction. I will include extensive documentation of the botanical work of Brother Arsène Brouard in Mexico and New Mexico and links to selected publications. 1 November 2024
Brother Arsène Brouard
The Botanical Life of Frère Gerfroy-Arsène Brouard: Christian Brother and Scientist.
Introduction
I told Mrs. [Agnes] Chase today that I always remembered the many beautiful flowers that grew on the mesa east of Santa Fe, and in the mountains nearby, but that I feared, now that Brother Arsène was there, in a few years we shall see only bare sand and rocks, without any indication of the former luxuriant vegetation! The mosses and lichens especially are going to suffer much!
So wrote Dr. Paul Standley in 1926 to Brother Arsène Brouard in 1926 when Standley learned of Arsène’s move to New Mexico. Standley had corresponded with Brother Arsène for a decade, identified or passed to other taxonomists literally thousands of Arsène’s plant specimens, and recognized the Brother’s continuing contributions to botany. Brother Arsène came to New Mexico near the end of his career to teach science, mathematics, and French at the Sacred Heart Training College in Las Vegas and at Saint Michael’s College in Santa Fe. He continued his extensive botanical collecting in northern New Mexico and added many new species of lichens to the known diversity. His 54 years of botanical exploration and collecting in France, Mexico, and the United States added more than 2000 species to the floras of Mexico and New Mexico including 200 species new to science. His specimens are housed in more than 50 herbaria around the world.
These pages will document Brother Arsène’s remarkable and important contributions to botany.
Click here for Brother Arsène's opening page
Click here for my selected publications.
Click here for a series of YouTube videos on the history of the Christian Brothers in New Mexico.
Introduction
I told Mrs. [Agnes] Chase today that I always remembered the many beautiful flowers that grew on the mesa east of Santa Fe, and in the mountains nearby, but that I feared, now that Brother Arsène was there, in a few years we shall see only bare sand and rocks, without any indication of the former luxuriant vegetation! The mosses and lichens especially are going to suffer much!
So wrote Dr. Paul Standley in 1926 to Brother Arsène Brouard in 1926 when Standley learned of Arsène’s move to New Mexico. Standley had corresponded with Brother Arsène for a decade, identified or passed to other taxonomists literally thousands of Arsène’s plant specimens, and recognized the Brother’s continuing contributions to botany. Brother Arsène came to New Mexico near the end of his career to teach science, mathematics, and French at the Sacred Heart Training College in Las Vegas and at Saint Michael’s College in Santa Fe. He continued his extensive botanical collecting in northern New Mexico and added many new species of lichens to the known diversity. His 54 years of botanical exploration and collecting in France, Mexico, and the United States added more than 2000 species to the floras of Mexico and New Mexico including 200 species new to science. His specimens are housed in more than 50 herbaria around the world.
These pages will document Brother Arsène’s remarkable and important contributions to botany.
Click here for Brother Arsène's opening page
Click here for my selected publications.
Click here for a series of YouTube videos on the history of the Christian Brothers in New Mexico.
