| Paul Alfred Pételot | |
| Birth Date: | 1885 |
| Birth Place: | Saint-Max, France |
| Death Date: | 1965 |
| Nationality: | French |
| Workplaces: | Nancy-Université Faculté Mixte de Médecine et de Pharmacie, Saigon Institute of Agronomic Research, Saigon |
| Author Abbrev Bot: | Pételot |
Paul Alfred Pételot (1885–1965)[1] was a French botanist and entomologist, whose primary scholarly focus was on medicinal plants in Southeast Asia.[2] Some sources list his date of death as 1940,[2] but several herbaria specimens are recorded as being collected by him up until 1944 including Carex kucyniakii (1944),[3] Teijsmanniodendron peteloti (1941), Amalocalyx microlobus (1941), Amalocalyx microlobus (1942), Trichosanthes kerrii (1944) and Siraitia siamensis (1944).[4] In addition, he continued to author publications through the 1950s, though it is possible these are posthumous.[5] [6]
Pételot was born in Saint-Max, France in 1885. His first professional posting was in 1908 as a member of the botany faculty at Nancy-Université. He then worked in Brazil and St. Petersburg, Russia before returning to France. In 1919 he was working in the cryptogamy department of the French National Museum of Natural History (French: Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle) and had been accepted as a member of the French Society of Plant Pathology (French: Société de Pathologie végétale de France) and the Botanical Society of France (French: Societe Botanique de France). He then moved to Southeast Asia and in 1922 joined the entomological station of Cho-Gank (Tonkin) and became a professor at the Hanoi School of Agriculture.[7] He moved to Saigon to become a lecturer at the Mixed Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy (French: Faculté Mixte de Médecine et de Pharmacie) and then led the botanical division of the Scientific and Technical Research Center (French: Centre de Recherces Scientifiques et Techniques). He was elected as a laureate of the French Academy of Sciences (French: Académie des sciences).[2]
He collected a large number of botanical specimens from Southeast Asia which have been deposited in the French National Museum of Natural History.[2]
He is the authority on botanical taxa including:
Several taxa are named in his honor including: