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Joseph F. Rock

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Joseph F. Rock (1886-1962) was a botanist, linguist, anthropologist, adventurer, and one of the most daring explorers of the Tibetan borderlands of China.

Born in Vienna, Joseph Rock taught himself Chinese characters at 13. From 1907-1920, he lived in Hawaii, becoming an expert on the flora. In the 1920s he went to China where he lived until 1949. A great linguist, he played Caruso to astonished Naxi villagers on a wind-up gramophone, while studying their language and culture. Rock sent thousands of pressed plants and seeds to his American backers, such as Sargent at Harvard's Arnold Arboretum and the US Department of Agriculture.

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