Background
He was born Frans Nicholaas Meijer in Amsterdam in 1875.
He was born Frans Nicholaas Meijer in Amsterdam in 1875.
He introduced 2,500 plants into the United States. The Meyer lemon was named in his honor. He emigrated to the United States in 1901, and went to work for Erwin F. Smith at the United States Department of Agriculture.
In 1902, Meyer began working at United States Department of Agriculture"s Plant Introduction Station in Santa Ana, California.
Meyer was hired in 1905 by the United States Department of Agriculture in their Office of Seed and Plant Introduction to send back to the United States economically useful plants. Through an arrangement with Charles Sprague Sargent and David Fairchild Meyer was also to send to the Arnold Arboretum trees and shrubs of ornamental value.
They archived images he collected of his travels. Specimens he collected included apricots, soybeans, and ginkgo biloba.
In June 1918, while traveling to Shanghai on the Japanese riverboat Feng Yang Maru, he fell overboard into the Yangtze River and drowned.