Meyer, Frank Nicholas

Frank N. Meyer was born Frans Meijer in Amsterdam in 1875. His family was not well off financially so young Frans was sent to work at the Amsterdam Botanical Gardens at age 14 as a gardener's helper. He proved an able assistant and worked his way up to the position of head gardener in charge of the experimental garden. His aptitude caught the attention of the director of the experimental garden Hugo de Vries who became his mentor and encouraged him to take some university courses on botany. Meyer arrived in the United States in 1901, and was hired by the USDA. In his 2 1/2 year tenure with the USDA, he completed several botanical expeditions to China. He subsequently began corresponding with Charles S. Sargent, the director of the Arnold Arboretum, who hired him to complete joint expeditions (with the USDA) to Asian in order to find plants of economic value. Meyer completed several major trips, documenting and bringing back thousands of specimens. Meyer died unexpectly in 1918, having either fallen or jumped off his steamer ship along the Yangtze River while enroute to Shanghai. He was buried in Shanghai.

In 1901, Frans Nicholas Meijer (1875-1918) emigrated from the Netherlands to America where he became Frank Meyer. Almost immediately Meyer went to work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Erwin F. Smith, known internationally for his groundbreaking work in bacteriology. In 1902 Meyer began working at USDA's Plant Introduction Station in Santa Ana, California. The period from 1905-1908 marked the beginning of Meyer's expeditions to Asia, where he collected plants in China, Russia, and Japan, as well as other countries. During his second expedition from 1909-1912, he colected in Europe, Russia, and in China. From 1913-1915, he explored and collected plants in Russia and China. Meyer's fourth and final expedition took place from 1916-1918. The purpose of this journey is stated in the accompanying typescripts, dated July 25, 1916. In summary, Meyer was to explore the portion of China lying southeast of Shanghai and south of the Yangtze River. He was to seek and collect southern peaches, bamboos--both timber and edible--the tung or wood-oil tree, improved varieties of tallow trees, the lichi, longan, root crops for wet lands, new varieties of rive, soy beans, rasberries, pears, chesnuts, and ornamental shrubs and timber trees. Meyer died an untimely death in June 1918. A passenger on the Feng Yang Maru Japanese riverboat, destined for Shanghai, he fell overboard into the Yangtze River. His body was recovered, but the circumstances of his death will always remain a mystery and source of speculation. Honored the world over for his contributions as a plant explorer, Frank Meyer's work touches us all every day. From apricots to wild pears, his introductions number over 2,500.