Riche, Claude-Antoine-Gaspard (1762 - 1797)

Summary

From his Wikipedia entry, 2025-04-04: "Claude-Antoine-Gaspard Riche (20 August 1762 - 5 September 1797) was a naturalist on Bruni d'Entrecasteaux's 1791 expedition in search of the lost ships of Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse. Cape Riche, on the south coast of Australia, is named in his honour."

Details

From "Curious Minds" (2012), pages 20 and 22:
"As a minimal requirement, a good naturalist must surely possess a curious mind. A really good naturalist, however, requires determination. Claude Riche is an example of just such a naturalist, even though his name is generally (and undeservedly) less well known-to the extent that English-language sources often call him Charles. French sources, however, consistently refer to him as Claude."

"In December 1792, Riche was ashore near Esperance Bay on the southern coast of south-west Western Australia when he lost touch with the rest of the party for two nights. Riche continued to make natural history observations, even when he was in sight of the ships again and began to fear they might leave without him.

His fear was real enough, because he knew the ships were short of water and might be forced to sail to Van Diemen's Land for water supplies. Riche wanted to know what the local people ate, and being medically trained, he was willing to do what was needed, for instance sifting Aboriginal excrement to locate pips and grains. He wrote:

'The pips belong to a very small berry that I have since found. This berry is very tasty, and comes from a bush, samples of which I have collected from this land. {?Enchylaena tomentosa, Chenopodiaceae, or Leucopogon richei, Ericaceae] The grains are those of Mesembryanthemum edule (Lin.) [Carpobrotus edulis, Aizoaceae)}; it is common on this coast. This plant . . . seems to be Nature's way of enabling human beings to populate the most arid deserts. It grows abundantly on the whole of the south coast of Africa, and its use has given it the name of Bread of the Hottentots; its flowers, developing in succession on the same plant, provide fruit during a great part of the year. I saw this plant each step I took in the country, but the natives had been so skilled in collecting this fruit that I did not manage to find any mature ones.' [See Chapter Endnotes 18 and 19, page 192]

Related entries

Published resources

Books

• MacInnis, Peter, Curious Minds: the Discoveries of Australian Naturalists (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2012), 213 pp. Pages 20-23. Details

Journal Articles

• Le Grand, Homer E., 'C. A. Riche's Plans for the Scientific Study of the South-West Pacific 1791-1794', Historical Records of Australian Science, 5 (3) (1982), 33-40. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR9820530033. Details