Hugh Algernon Weddell was born in England but was raised and educated in France where he received a medical degree in 1841. He had also studied botany and became a respected member of the French botanical fraternity. In 1843, he was invited to join the Castelnau expedition to South America, and he explored and collected botanical specimens in that continent for five years. Weddell made a second trip to South America in 1853, which is described in Voyage dans la Nord de la Bolivie (1853). The history of his earlier trip had been published as Additions à la flore de l’Amérique du Sud (1850). Chloris andina: essai d’une flore de la region alpine des Cordillères de l’Amérique du Sud was published in two volumes, 1855-1861, and it constitutes the sixth part of Francis de Castelnau’s Expédition dans les parties centrals de l’Amérique du Sud (1850-1859).