Botanist Franklin Picard died in Paris on October 29, 2022, of a heart attack, at the age of 79. Unanimously admired for his vast knowledge of trees and plants, he was also highly appreciated for the simplicity full of good-naturedness with which he shared his knowledge. Among its many activities in the field of plants and gardens are the management of the arboretum of Segrez, in Essonne, the creation in 1989 of the Conservatory of specialized plant collections, the animation of the Association of botanical parks of France or, recently, the redevelopment of the Roche-Fauconnière park, in Cherbourg, in the Cotentin. He was also, in the early 1980s, one of the initiators of the first plant festivals in Courson, in Essonne, with Hélène and Patrice Fustier, the owners of the estate.
The “plant madman” was also a collector of sound recordings – essentially voices – which he made himself on a tape recorder or acquired during his botanical travels. The voice of a former American slave, that of the actress Sarah Bernhardt or that of the revolutionary Leon Trotsky, thus entered its collection, preserved in an Institute of sound archives.
Franklin Picard was born in Saint-Sulpice-de-Favières, in Essonne, on October 26, 1943. The one whose studies were voluntarily interrupted comes from a family of industrialists who did not divert him from what was to be the passion of his life: botany. After having been introduced to it, in his youth, in Cherbourg, by a collector of tropical plants, he was taken under the wing of a renowned researcher from the National Museum of Natural History, Aline Raynal, who trained him – it was still possible – outside the university course. Thereafter, the financial ease which he was able to enjoy gave him the possibility of making numerous trips far from France, to tropical America or Asia, in search of rare plants, like a wealthy naturalist from the XIXe century. This original training and experience in the field made him a self-taught scientist with an established reputation.
Priceless botanical treasures
He launched himself successfully by continuing the development of the arboretum of the family estate of Segrez, in the footsteps of its illustrious former owner, the botanist and winegrower Alphonse Lavallée. (The old regular garden, transformed in the 18the century in an Anglo-Chinese garden, with its shell cave, was then the subject of a study by the historian Monique Mosser.) From 1976, the production of a precise and as exhaustive as possible inventory for the account of the Association of Botanical Parks of France had its extension in the edition of a Guide to botanical heritage in France, realized with Jean-Pierre Demoly (Actes Sud, 2005).
At the same time, he had fruitful scientific exchanges with a famous cactus collector from the Côte d’Azur, Julien Marnier-Lapostolle, after having been a regular guest at his villa Les Cèdres, in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. This resulted in the publication of a reference work, also under the signature of Jean-Pierre Demoly, An exceptional botanical garden. The Cedars (Franklin Picard ed., 1999).
In 2019, the sale to a Ukrainian oligarch of the former villa of Belgian King Leopold II, with its exceptional collections of palm trees and succulents, made Franklin Picard fear an irreversible deterioration – which did not take place until today. today. He was even able to return there a few months before his death, which did not fail to reassure him about the future of invaluable botanical treasures.
After having played a key role in the 1990s in the creation and management of the Conservatory of specialized plant collections (inspired by the current British Plant Heritage) and its review Men & Plants –, this tireless “botanical gardener” had devoted himself, since 2017, to the rehabilitation of the Cherbourg arboretum. Located in the park of La Roche-Fauconnière, the “tropical garden of doctor Favier”, which he knew young, is about to be reborn thanks to the expertise and the unequaled memory of the one who was his last – and endearing – scientific officer.