Richard Baron (botanist)

Reverend Richard Baron (8 September 1847 – 12 October 1907) was an English missionary and botanist who worked and lived in Madagascar from 1872 to 1907.

During his mission in Madagascar from 1872 onwards, he travelled extensively and collected a large number of plants; he sent roughly 12,000 specimens to the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, and also deposited collections in other herbaria.

He quickly learned Malagasy, and published the first Malagasy-language textbooks on plants and geology.

Together with James Sibree, Jr., another missionary, he edited the English-language journal Antananarivo Annual.

Several Malagasy taxa were named after him, including the plant genera Baronia, Baroniella, and Neobaronia.