Hans Schinz

Hans Schinz (1914)

Hans Schinz (born December 6, 1858 in Zurich ; † October 30, 1941 there ) was a Swiss explorer and botanist . Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " Schinz ".

Life

The son of the iron trader and businessman Hans Rudolf Schinz and Julie Schinz-Vögeli came from a patrician family in Zurich and studied botany at the ETH Zurich from 1880 to 1883 . Botanical teaching and research in Zurich was not up to date. Therefore, after completing his doctorate, Schinz moved to Berlin , where Paul Ascherson taught "New Botany", which wanted to be more than herbalism, and where the Africa researcher Georg Schweinfurt introduced him to the colonial entrepreneur Adolf Lüderitz . In 1882 he took part in a first research trip to Asia Minor . In 1884 he took part in an expedition that the entrepreneur Lüderitz had sent to undertake economic research into the areas he had acquired in German South West Africa . Schinz, who was dissatisfied with the slow progress of the expedition, decided to start a journey financed by his private fortune, which first led him to Greater Namaqualand . In the years 1885 to 1887, he extended his research to the northeast of today's protected area and the adjacent British Kalahari area to Lake Ngami . Schinz traveled from mission station to mission station and made frequent use of his camera, which he aimed at the "locals" with a "physiognomic" interest. In February 1887 returned to Zurich. He had 50 boxes with herbal and animal preparations and ethnographic artifacts in his luggage. Sometimes these were stolen objects, including a human skull from Olukonda .

In 1889 he married Dorothea Amalie Frei, the daughter of a secondary school teacher. His work Deutsch-Südwestafrika, research trips through the German protected areas Groß-Nama- and Hereroland, to the Kunene, the Ngamisee and Kalahari (Oldenburg 1891) is of fundamental importance for the study of the country. Schinz completed his habilitation in Zurich in 1889, where he became an associate professor in 1892 and a full professor of systematic botany from 1895 to 1929 . From 1893 he was director of the Zurich Botanical Garden . According to the Namibian historian Dag Henrichsen , his work made the university city of Zurich one of the most important centers of African botany in Europe. He was also briefly a member of the Democratic Party in Zurich as a parliamentarian. He held numerous offices with authorities and public commissions.

Honors

The plant genera Melioschinzia K.Schum are named after Schinz . from the mahogany family (Meliaceae), Schinzafra Kuntze from the Bruniaceae family , Schinziella Gilg from the gentianaceae family and Schinziophyton Hutch. ex Radcl.-Sm. from the milkweed family (Euphorbiaceae).

Publications

Contributions to the knowledge of the flora of German Southwest Africa and the adjacent areas. Berlin / Zurich 1888–97
German South West Africa, research trips through the German protected areas Groß-Nama- and Hereroland, to the Kunene, the Ngamisee and Kalahari. Oldenburg 1891
A new farming state in south-west Africa. In: Announcements of the Eastern Switzerland Geographical-Commercial Society in St. Gallen. 1886, pp. 26-31.

literature

German Colonial Lexicon. Volume III (1920), p. 290
Hans Werner Debrunner: Swiss in Colonial Africa. Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Basel 1991, ISBN 3-905141-51-5 , pp. 145–50.
Völkerkundemuseum of the University of Zurich (ed.): “You just have to collect everything”. The Zurich botanist and explorer Hans Schinz and his ethnographic collection South West Africa. NZZ Libro, Zurich 2012, ISBN 978-3-03823-770-9 .
Dag Henrichsen (Ed.): Hans Schinz - Fragments, research trips in German South West Africa, Verlag Basler Afrika-Biografien, Basel 2012.

Web links

Literature by and about Hans Schinz in the catalog of the German National Library
Erwin Neuenschwander: Schinz, Hans. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Kurzbiografie (English)
Author entry and list of the plant names described for Hans Schinz at the IPNI
Overview of Hans Schinz's courses at the University of Zurich (summer semester 1890 to summer semester 1900)

Individual evidence

↑ The Little Encyclopedia. Encyclios-Verlag, Zurich 1950, vol. 2, p. 543.
^ Hans Werner Debrunner: Swiss in colonial Africa. Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Basel 1991, p. 145.
↑ Jonathan Pärli: "Woe to the animal or the plant" - The travel letters of the Zurich botanist Hans Schinz from German South West Africa . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 216 . Zurich September 17, 2012, p. 12 .
^ Erwin Neuenschwander: Schinz, Hans. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland mobile. August 8, 2011, accessed November 3, 2018 .
↑ 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 .

personal data
SURNAME	Schinz, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Swiss botanist
DATE OF BIRTH	December 6, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH	Zurich
DATE OF DEATH	October 30, 1941
Place of death	Zurich

[1] The Little Encyclopedia. Encyclios-Verlag, Zurich 1950, vol. 2, p. 543.

[2] Hans Werner Debrunner: Swiss in colonial Africa. Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Basel 1991, p. 145.

[3] Jonathan Pärli: "Woe to the animal or the plant" - The travel letters of the Zurich botanist Hans Schinz from German South West Africa . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 216 . Zurich September 17, 2012, p. 12 .

[4] Erwin Neuenschwander: Schinz, Hans. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland mobile. August 8, 2011, accessed November 3, 2018 .

[Burkhardt_2018-5] 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 .