Moritz Richard Schomburgk

Moritz Richard Schomburgk ( born October 5, 1811 in Freyburg in Saxony -Anhalt, † March 24, 1891 in Adelaide ) was a German gardener, botanist and explorer. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " MRSchomb. ".

Life

Richard was the son of Johann Friedrich Ludwig Schomburgk, a Lutheran assistant pastor, and Christiane Juliane Wilhelmine, born Krippendorf. After the school education on the Freyburg elementary school and by a private tutor, he began teaching in 1825 a gardener in Merseburg. After military service in the Royal Guard in Berlin from 1831 to 1834 he was a gardener in Berlin's Tiergarten and then in the park of Sanssouci.

He accompanied his brother Robert 1840-1844 as a botanist and writer expedition to the Prussian- British expedition to British Guiana and Brazil. He published three volumes of travels in British Guiana in the years 1840-1844. The natural history and ethnographic studies of the trip came thanks to British generosity in the University Museum Berlin.

In the revolutionary year of 1848 he had to flee because of political persecution. He founded with his brother Alfred Otto an emigrant society and sailed in March 1849 on the Princess Louise to South Australia from. He had the support of Leopold von Buch, which is why the settlement that he along with Otto near Adelaide - about 6.4 km (4 miles ) away from Gawler - founded, was named book field. While his brother Otto founded the South Australian newspaper, Richard planted the first vineyard.

In 1862 he managed just two acres of land; 1860 to 1861 he was standing in front of the district of Muğla Wirra. He justified at this time the Gawler Museum.

Creation of the Botanical Garden in Adelaide

In September 1865 Richard Schomburgk was curator of the Botanic Gardens of Adelaide. He transformed the " sterile desert " in one of the most colorful spots of the young colony. 1868, the Rosarium and the agriculturally - experimental garden were completed. Richard visited Ferdinand von Mueller in Melbourne and received from this extensive collection of plants for the garden in Adelaide. 1873 exchanged Richard Schomburgk, 18,000 trees with other public institutions and private individuals in Australia. He was responsible for the planting of the Wellington Square, a park beside the Parliament Buildings and the Marble Hill in Adelaide. He has published extensively on the importance of forests for the climate and the economic value of the trees. In 1867 he built a greenhouse for aquatic plants in the Botanical Gardens Adelaide and cultivated it for many decades the only Victoria regia, Victoria amazonica, in Australia; he had given the scientific name of the giant water lily. About the growth of the plant, there were weekly press reports.

The other buildings were a Palm House, a museum of wood samples, a herbarium and a museum of economic botany, in all crops and their products were exhibited. 1891 the number of known species of South Australia had risen to almost 14,000 by his work of 5000. Richard Schomburgk remained until 1891 Director of the Botanical Gardens in Adelaide.

Honors

Richard Schomburgk was a member of the Philosophical Society of Adelaide since 1865. Numerous natural history academies in Europe and America made ​​him honorary members. The Prussian kings, the king of Italy and the Grand Duke of Hesse awarded him the Order, the Leopoldina made ​​him an honorary doctorate. In 1872 he was given the directorship of the Botanical Gardens in Melbourne, but he refused in light of his friendship with Ferdinand von Mueller. The orchid genus Schomburgkia was named after him in 1838 by Lindley; it has recently been drawn to Laelia.

Works (selection)

  • On the Urari: the deadly arrow - poison of the Macusis, an Indian tribe in British Guiana. Adelaide 1873.
  • Manners and customs of the tribes on the Peake River, South Australia. Journal of Ethnology; Vol 11, 1879, pp. 235-240.
  • On the naturalized weeds and other plants in South Australia. Adelaide in 1879.
  • Catalogue of the plants under cultivation in the Government Botanic Garden, Adelaide, South Australia. Adelaide 1878.
  • The grasses and fodder plants in South Australia. Adelaide 1874.
  • Catalogue of the plants under cultivation in the Government Botanic Garden, Adelaide, South Australia. Adelaide in 1871.
  • On the development of Leipoa ocellata. Monthly reports of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Berlin 1861, S. 1027
  • Traveling in British Guiana in the years 1840-1844. Leipzig from 1847 to 1848.
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