George Argent
Botanist and world expert on Vireya rhododendrons
GEORGE ARGENT who has died aged 77, was a taxonomist and botanist at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), and a world expert on Vireya rhododendrons, tender subtropical species which produce a wide range of flower forms, colours and perfumes.
Introduced to Britain in the late 1870s to Veitch’s nursery in London, they were almost lost to cultivation until members of the RBGE’S scientific staff started to collect a few in south-east Asia in the 1970s. The RBGE’S collection went on to become the largest in the world as a result of Argent’s work.
During some 50 expeditions, mostly to remote parts of southeast Asia, Argent trudged through sweltering rainforests and climbed high tropical mountains, where most Vireya are to be found, braving snakes, insects, leeches and jungle cats – even tribal wars.
Once, during an expedition in 1986 in Papua New Guinea, he arrived at the airport to leave to find a tribal conflict going on outside: “My driver took one look at the crowd and told me I could either walk to the airport by myself or come back with him,” he recalled. “Of course, I got out and walked to the airport. It was all boarded and shut because of the rioting, but the tribesmen stopped when they saw me.
“They removed the glass from one of the airport windows and helped me climb through. The airport staff were cowering behind the check-in desks.
“Incredibly, I was then able to check in while this tribal riot was happening outside. I think the fact I was white meant I wasn’t targeted.”
As well as many species of Vireya rhododendrons, he also discovered, on Mount Mulu, Malaysia, in 1977 a rare slipper orchid, which had not been cultivated in the West for more than a century
In 1998 several species of Vireya, mostly collected by Argent, made their debut at the Royal Horticultural Society’s early spring show as part of a gold medal collection of the rhododendrons staged by the RBGE. They included the white-flowered Rhododendron rouseii, collected by Argent in the Philippines in 1989, and Rhododendron sarcodes, a species with narrow tubular
vermilion flowers, also collected by Argent from the same country, in 1992. In 2016 a collection of the rhododendrons made their first appearance at Chelsea, on loan from the RBGE.
Graham Charles George Argent was born on May 15 1941 in Hertfordshire, read Botany at the University of Leicester and gained his PHD from the University of North Wales, Bangor. From 1969 to 1973 he was a research fellow for the New Guinea Biological Foundation, in charge of a project to collect and study a gene pool of Musa (bananas). In 1974 he was appointed tropical botanist at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, rising to become head of the tropical section.
Argent published numerous books and papers, including an acclaimed monograph Rhododendrons of the Subgenus Vireya (2006, second edition 2015) and The Rohododendrons of Sabah Malaysian Borneo (2007, with Anthony Lamb and Anthea Phillipps).
Eight species, in seven plant families, were named in his honour and in 1997 he was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society’s Loder Cup for his contribution to rhododendron research. In 2002 he received the American Rhododendron Society’s Gold Medal and in 2013 he was awarded the David Fairchild Medal for Plant Exploration by America’s National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawaii.
Argent was known for his kindness and generosity especially to younger botanists and horticulturalists, as well as to many botanical artists for whom he obtained funding.
He is survived by his wife, Sue, and by their two sons and a daughter.
George Argent, born May 15 1941, died April 24 2019