Joseph Rock

Joseph Rock, full name Joseph Francis Charles Rock, (1884-1962) was an Austrian-American explorer, geographer, linguist and botanist. He was born in Vienna, Austria but moved to Honolulu, Hawaii in 1907, where he became an authority on the flora of these islands.

In the period 1922-1949 he spent most of his time studying the flora, peoples and languages of southwest China, mainly in Yunnan, Sichuan, southwest Gansu and eastern Tibet. Many Asian plants that he collected can be seen in the Arnold Arboretum. After 1949 he returned to Honolulu where he died in 1962.

Among the plants he discovered is the spectacular Rock's Peony Paeonia rockii, and many new rhododendrons. The standard botanical author abbreviation Rock is applied to species he described.

He also produced a 1,094-page dictionary and two histories of the Nakhi people and language of northwestern Yunnan.

See also Gongga Shan, a mountain in Sichuan which (due to poor measuring equipment) he erroneously thought for a time to be the highest in the world.

External links

• Harvard University papers on Joseph Rock
• Rock's contribution to the study of the Naxi language