Frederick Scheer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Frederick Scheer

Frederick Scheer (* 1792 on Rügen ; † December 30, 1868 in Northfleet , Kent ; actually Friedrich Scheer ) was a merchant and plant lover from Germany. Around 1840 he campaigned intensively for the preservation of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew . Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " Scheer ".

Live and act

Frederick Scheer was the son of a pastor and was born on the island of Rügen in 1792. He spent the first part of his life doing business in Russia . As a young man he settled in England as a city merchant. In Kew Green on the outskirts of London he lived in a country house which included a garden with a greenhouse. There he cultivated numerous plants that he imported.

Scheer, who represented liberal positions, played an essential role in founding the Anti-Corn Law League and was in close correspondence with its founder Richard Cobden . To support her, Scheer wrote a series of articles for the London Morning Chronicle under the pseudonym Diogenes , which were published in 1841 - summarized in book form.

At the end of the 1830s there were efforts to dissolve the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew as a scientific facility and to convert it into a kitchen and orchard for the royal family. A commission headed by John Lindley was set up to examine the management, condition and future of the garden. Lindley's 1838 report, which was only presented to the UK Parliament on May 12, 1840 , caused a heated debate. Scheer wrote a small book called Kew and its Gardens , which appeared in 1840, in which he described the history of the garden. He also wrote newspaper articles under the pseudonym "Diogenes". The Royal Botanic Gardens eventually became the responsibility of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests , who appointed William Jackson Hooker as the garden's first director on April 1, 1841 .

Scheer's botanical interest at that time was mainly the cactus plants . He had an extensive collection, including numerous new species that he had obtained from Mexico from the director of the Chihuahua Mint, John Potts, since 1842 . He was in contact with other cactus lovers, such as Joseph zu Salm-Reifferscheidt-Dyck , Ludwig Georg Karl Pfeiffer and Christoph Friedrich Otto . Scheer edited the descriptions of the cacti for Berthold Carl Seemann , who was a botanist on board the HMS Herald from 1845 to 1851 .

Scheer spent the last years of his life in Northfleet , Kent . When moving there, he lost most of his cactus collection. His botanical interest then concentrated on the ferns .

Scheer was married and had a son who died a few years before him.

Dedication names

In 1847, Philipp August Friedrich Mühlenpfordt named this cactus species as Mammillaria scheeri in Scheer's honor .

Berthold Carl Seemann named the genus Scheeria from the Gesneriaceae plant family in his honor .

The succulent plant species Coryphantha Scheeri , Echeveria Scheeri , Echinocereus Scheeri , Echinopsis Scheeri and Sclerocactus Scheeri are named after him.

Fonts (selection)

  • Kew and its Gardens . B. Steill, 1840.
  • The Letters of Diogenes, to Sir Robert Peel, Bart. Ridgway and Richardson, London 1841. (online)
  • A Brief Description of a New Species of Mamillaria, in the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew . In: The London Journal of Botany . Volume 4, 1845, pp. 136-137. (on-line)
  • Cactaceae . In: Berthold Seemann: The botany of the voyage of HMS Herald: under the command of Captain Henry Kellett, RN, CB, during the years 1845-51 . Lovell Reeve and Co., 1852-1857, pp. 285-293. (on-line)

proof

literature

  • B. Seemann: Obituary of Frederick Scheer . In: Journal of Botany, British and Foreign . Volume 7, pp. 268-270. (on-line)
  • Colin C. Walker: Frederick Scheer (1792–1868) of Kew . In: Kew Magazine . Volume 11, 1994, pp. 74-81, doi: 10.1111 / j.1467-8748.1994.tb00413.x .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymic 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 .
  2. ^ Curtis's Botanical Magazine . 3rd episode, volume 79, 1853, plate 4743. (online)
  3. ^ Gordon Douglas Rowley : A History of Succulent Plants. Strawberry Press, 1997, ISBN 0-912647-16-0 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Scheer, Frederick
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Scheer, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-British merchant and plant lover
DATE OF BIRTH 1792
PLACE OF BIRTH to reprimand
DATE OF DEATH December 30, 1868
Place of death Northfleet , Kent