Christian Friedrich Ecklon

Christian Friedrich Ecklon ( born December 17, 1795 in Aabenraa, † December 1868 in Cape Town) was a pharmacist and botanist. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Eckl. ".

Life and work

Born the son of a butcher, he began teaching a pharmacist and then studied in Kiel. In 1823 he traveled to South Africa and worked there for four years, first as a pharmacy assistant, then as a pharmacist. Despite its rather meager financial circumstances and his poor health he was able to acquire his botanical work a reputation in the professional world. In 1828, he returned with an important collection to Europe. With German and Danish support he traveled in 1829, together with Carl Ludwig Philipp Zeyher a second time at the southern tip of Africa to continue his research and collecting activities. After his return in 1833 he worked until 1838 on his research in Hamburg. Part of his collection went to Copenhagen and another part of the herbarium Kiel, the botanical collection of the University, which it awarded him an honorary doctorate. Its collections and works laid the foundation on which his friend Otto Wilhelm special along with the Irish botanist William Henry Harvey in the years 1860-1865 the Flora Capensis created. In 1838 he traveled to South Africa for a third time and remained there with a brief interruption in 1844 until his death. Among his discoveries known to a wider audience heard the genre of freesia.

Ehrentaxon

He was the genus Ecklonia Hornem honor. the plant family of Alariaceae named. The as an ornamental plant widespread Bornholm Osteospermum Daisy ecklonis bears his name as an epithet.

Works

• With Carl Ludwig Philipp Zeyher: Enumeratio Plantarum Africae Australis Extratropicae. Hamburg 1834-1837, (online).