Franz Sieber

Franz Wilhelm Sieber ( born March 30, 1789 in Prague, † December 17, 1844 ) was an Austrian botanist, plant collector and explorer. His official botanical author abbreviation is " screener ".

Life

After attending a grammar school in Prague from 1802 to 1807, Franz Sieber studied building science and engineering. After three years, he broke off his studies and turned to botany. From 1811 Sieber developed a distinctive travel. He first visited Italy and Greece, 1817-1819 Crete, Palestine and Egypt. From 1822 to 1824 a two-year voyage around the world led him to Australia, South Africa and Mauritius, where he was not only an extensive collection of plants, but also animals, objects of art and ethnographic objects brought back to Europe. Older literature, according to which Sieber was also in the New World, based on a confusion with the plant collector Friedrich Wilhelm Sieber, who worked for Johann Centurius of Hoffmannsegg in Brazil in 1801. Apart from Siebers own travels, he engaged other collectors, especially Franz Kohaut who conducted research in the West Indies, Carl Theodor Hilsenberg and Wenceslas Boii, who were active in Mauritius and Réunion, Michael Pfeiffer, who traveled to the Bay of Kotor in Dalmatia, Franz Wrbna, who collected for Franz Sieber on the peninsula Cayenne and Trinidad and undertook Carl Ludwig Philipp Zeyher, the botanical expeditions to the Cape of good Hope.

Franz Sieber financed many expeditions having canvassed purchasers of its collections. In addition, he organized exhibitions, such as an "Egyptian Cabinet ," for which he demanded two florins as an entry price. Finally, he managed to sell most of its collections, with the exception of the botanical part, for 6000 florins to the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.

However, due to his extensive travels, he fell again and again into financial distress that expressed his mood and that caused his behavior to authorities became increasingly abusive.

1820 Sieber claimed to have discovered a cure for rabies. He hoped to gain with the publication of the discovery of new financing instruments. Since he did not succeed, drove him this again and again burgeoning idea to delusions. In 1824 he returned from a seven -month stay in Australia back. He lived alternately in Dresden and Leipzig to organize its extensive collections and literary records. After a trip to Paris and in the Dauphiné in 1830, he spent the last 14 years of his life because of mental derangement in a Prague lunatic asylum, where he died at the age of 55 years.

Dedikationsnamen

The plant genus Siebera J.Gay from the sunflower family ( Asteraceae) has been named in his honor. In addition, many taxa in the species rank by Franz Wilhelm Sieber have been named, including Siebers crocus (Crocus sieberi ), the Dolomites - Devil's Claw ( Phyteuma sieberi ), Luzula sieberi, Eucalyptus sieberi, Cheilanthes sieberi, Yellow Bottlebrush ( Callistemon sieberi ), Limonium sieberi, Badula sieberi, Acacia sieberiana and Hosta sieberiana.

Works (selection)

• About the reasons for the Radicalcur erupted hydrophobia, 1820
• The descriptive directory of collected in the years 1817 and 1818, on a journey through Crete, Egypt and Palestine, antiquities and other art and natural products: in addition to a treatise on Egyptian mummies, 1820
• Trip to the island of Crete in the Greek Archipelago in 1817, 1823. Digitized edition Bavarian State Library Volume 1 Volume 2 (reprint excerpts 2001)
• Travel from Cairo to Jerusalem and back again: In addition to illumination of some holy places, 1823