Hermann Gusmus

Hermann Gusmus in "Die Gartenwelt", 15th year, 1911

Hermann Gusmus (* 1843 , † after 1911) was a German-Austrian gardener , botanist and plant dealer . He was known among botanists and perennial growers of his time primarily for his knowledge of alpine plants.

biography

Hermann Gusmus attended the Josephinum grammar school in Hildesheim, which he left on April 1, 1861. He then devoted himself to the gardening profession as an apprentice in the Royal Mountain Garden in Herrenhausen. After his apprenticeship, Gusmus was called up for military service in order to replace older teams in a regiment that was then in Holstein . After the service was over, Gusmus returned to Hanover and found a job as an assistant in the royal plantation garden .

In the war year 1866 he was drafted into the military again and took part in the battle of Langensalza . A few days later he suffered a lower leg injury that initially seemed minor, but turned out to be bad. For this reason, Gusmus was dismissed from military service before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War .

He found his next job in the Grand Ducal Court Horticulture at Doberan in Mecklenburg . He performed his work in the gardens of the grand ducal villas in Heiligendamm, among other places . The Prince Windisch-Graetz there commissioned Gusmus to manage his nursery near Haasberg Castle in Alben in Carniola . Gusmus and his wife moved to Haasberg in Krain on October 1, 1871, but he was dissatisfied with his new job, so he resumed his botanical studies.

Gusmus gave up the management of the princely garden in order to set up a plant production with his own cultures in Germany and Austria. The demand for rare and desirable plant rarities prompted him to seek out more and more remote areas, so that he eventually went on excursions to Greece and Turkey . The trips were time and money consuming and extremely stressful.

Gusmus supplied some of the most famous researchers and professionals of his time and was considered an expert in botany himself . He first ran one of the most important collections of alpine plants of his time in Laibach , Villach and Klagenfurt .

Works

Gusmus Hermann: Die Alpenflora, catalog of the alpines found in the central alpine chain, including description and culture information, as well as the sales prices. Villach, 1881

literature

• Max Hesdörffer: The garden world. 15th year, No. 12, Parey, Berlin 1911, p. VIII, 166 f, archive.org .