Franz Wilhelm Sieber

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Franz Wilhelm Sieber (born March 30, 1789 in Prague , † December 17, 1844 there ) was a Bohemian, k. k. Austrian botanist , plant collector and explorer . Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " Sieber ".

Life

After attending a high school in Prague from 1802 to 1807, Franz Sieber studied civil engineering and engineering. After three years he broke off his studies and turned to botany. From 1811 Sieber developed a distinct travel activity. First he visited Italy and Greece , from 1817 to 1819 Crete , Palestine and Egypt . From 1822 to 1824 he traveled around the world for two years to Australia , South Africa and Mauritius , where he not only gathered an extensive collection of plants, but also brought animals, objets d'art and ethnographic objects back to Europe. Older literature references, according to which Sieber was also in the New World, are based on a mix-up with the plant collector Friedrich Wilhelm Sieber , who worked for Johann Centurius von Hoffmannsegg in Brazil as early as 1801 . Aside from Sieber's own travels, he also engaged other collectors, in particular Franz Kohaut , who carried out research in the Antilles, Carl Theodor Hilsenberg and Wenceslas Bojer , who were active in Mauritius and Réunion , Michael Pfeiffer , who toured the Bay of Kotor in Dalmatia , Franz Wrbna , who collected for Franz Sieber on the Cayenne peninsula and on Trinidad , and Carl Ludwig Philipp Zeyher , who undertook botanical expeditions to the Cape of Good Hope .

Franz Sieber financed many expeditions by soliciting buyers for his collections. In addition, he organized exhibitions, such as an “Egyptian Cabinet”, for which he asked two guilders as entry price. Finally he managed to sell a large part of his collections, with the exception of the botanical part, for 6,000 guilders to the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . Since 1820 he belonged to this academy as a corresponding member.

Due to his extensive travels, however, he repeatedly got into financial hardship, which depressed his mood and led to his behavior towards authorities becoming increasingly insulting.

In 1820 Sieber claimed to have discovered a remedy for rabies . He hoped that the publication of this discovery would raise new funding. Since he did not succeed in doing this, this constantly emerging idea drove him into delusions. In 1824 he returned from a seven month stay in Australia. He lived alternately in Dresden and Leipzig in order to organize his extensive collections and literary records. After a detour to Paris and the Dauphiné in 1830, he spent the last 14 years of his life because of mental derangement in a Prague madhouse , where he died at the age of 55.

Dedication names

The plant genus Siebera J.Gay from the sunflower family (Asteraceae) and the genus Beriesa Steud. from the family of the Chenopodiaceae has been named in his honor. In addition, many taxa have also been named after Franz Wilhelm Sieber, including Sieber's crocus ( Crocus sieberi ), the Dolomite devil's claw ( Phyteuma sieberi ), Luzula sieberi , Eucalyptus sieberi , Cheilanthes sieberi , yellow cylinder cleaner ( Callistemon sieberi ), Limonium sieberi , Badula sieberi , Acacia sieberiana , Aristida sieberiana and Hosta sieberiana .

Works (selection)

Sieber, map of Jerusalem and its immediate surroundings (1818)
  • Map of Jerusalem and its immediate vicinity , 1818
  • About the justification of the radical cure erupted water aversion , 1820
  • Descriptive index of the antiquities and other art and natural products collected in the years 1817 and 1818 on a trip through Creta, Egypt and Palestine: together with a treatise on Egyptian mummies , 1820
  • Journey to the island of Crete in the Greek Archipelagus in 1817 , 1823. Digitized edition Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Volume 1 Volume 2
  • Journey from Cairo to Jerusalem and back again: with illumination of some holy places , 1823

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .

Web links

Wikisource: Franz Wilhelm Sieber  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Sieber, Franz Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bohemian botanist and plant collector
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1789
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH December 17, 1844
Place of death Prague