Moritz Richard Schomburgk

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Moritz Richard Schomburgk

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

Life

Richard was the son of Johann Friedrich Ludwig Schomburgk , an Evangelical Lutheran auxiliary pastor, and Christiane Juliane Wilhelmine, née Krippendorf. After the school education at the Freyburg elementary school and through a private tutor, he began an apprenticeship as a gardener in Merseburg in 1825 . After military service with the Royal Guard in Berlin from 1831 to 1834, he became a gardener in the Berlin zoo and then in the park of Sanssouci .

He accompanied his brother Robert between 1840 and 1844 as a botanist and expedition writer on the Prussian-British expedition to British Guiana and Brazil. He published three volumes of Journeys in British Guiana in the years 1840–1844 . Thanks to English generosity, the natural history and ethnographical items from the trip ended up in the Berlin University Museum. An application for a job at the Berlin Museum of Natural History failed in 1848. In this year of the revolution , Richard and his brother Alfred Otto decided to emigrate to Australia, partly to avoid the repressive political situation in Berlin, partly because they promised a fundamental improvement in their economic situation. He founded an emigration company with his brother and set sail for South Australia on the Princess Louise in March 1849 . He had support from Leopold von Buch , which is why the settlement he founded together with Otto near Adelaide - about 6.4 kilometers (4 miles) from Gawler - was called Buchfelde. While his brother Otto founded the Süd-Australische Zeitung , Richard planted the first Australian vineyard.

In 1862 he was already cultivating two hectares of land; from 1860 to 1861 he was in front of the district of Mudla Wirra. During this time he founded the Gawler Museum.

Head of Adelaide Botanical Gardens

Plaque, Adelaide

In September 1865 Richard Schomburgk became director of the Adelaide Botanical Gardens, founded in 1855. He transformed the “sterile desert” into one of the most colorful spots of the young colony. In 1868 the rosarium and the agricultural experimental garden were completed. Richard visited Ferdinand von Müller in Melbourne and received from him an extensive collection of plants for the garden in Adelaide. In 1873 Richard Schomburgk exchanged 18,000 trees with other public institutions and private individuals in Australia. He was responsible for the planting of Wellington Square, the park by the Parliament building and Marble Hill in Adelaide. He published extensively on the importance of forests for the climate and the economic value of trees. In 1867 he built a greenhouse for aquatic plants in the Adelaide Botanical Garden and cultivated the only Victoria regia , Victoria amazonica , in Australia for many decades ; He gave this giant water lily its scientific name. There were weekly press reports about the growth of the plant.

The other buildings were a palm house (1875) designed based on the model of a greenhouse in Bremen by Gustav Runge , which still exists today, a museum for wood samples, a herbarium and a museum for economic botany (1880–1881), in which all useful plants and their Products were exhibited. In 1891 the number of known South Australian species had increased from 5,000 to nearly 14,000 through his work. Richard Schomburgk remained director of the Botanical Gardens in Adelaide until 1891.

Honors

Memorial plaque for Robert Hermann and Moritz Richard Schomburgk in Freyburg

On October 15, 1844 he was awarded the academic nickname I. John Harrisson of the Member (1548 matriculation number.) Leopoldina selected. Richard Schomburgk had been a member of the Adelaide Philosophical Society since 1865. Numerous natural history academies in Europe and America made him a member. The Prussian kings, the King of Italy and the Grand Duke of Hesse awarded him medals. In 1872 he was offered the direction of the Botanical Garden in Melbourne, which he refused because of his friendship with Ferdinand von Müller. The orchid genus Schomburgkia was named after him by Lindley in 1838; she has recently been placed with Laelia .

Works (selection)

  • On the Urari: the deadly arrow-poison of the Macusis, an Indian tribe in British Guiana . Adelaide 1873.
  • 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 1879.
  • Catalog 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.
  • Catalog of the plants under cultivation in the Government Botanic Garden, Adelaide, South Australia . Adelaide 1871.
  • About the development of the Leipoa ocellata. Monthly reports of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin . Berlin 1861, p. 1027
  • Description of three new plants from the Carimani or Caramang river basin, a tributary of the Mazaruni , in Linnaea , 20 vol., Halle 1847, pp. 750f.
  • Travels in British Guiana from 1840–1844 . Leipzig 1847-1848.

literature

  • Johann Daniel Ferdinand Neigebaur : History of the imperial Leopoldino-Carolinische German academy of natural scientists during the second century of its existence. Friedrich Frommann , Jena 1860, p. 271 (archive.org)
  • Pauline Payne: Dr. Richard Schomburgk and Adelaide Botanic Garden, 1865-1891 , Thesis (PhD) University of Adelaide, 1992.
  • Pauline Payne: The Diplomatic Gardener. Richard Schomburgk, explorer and Botanic Garden director , Adelaide 2007.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ biography
  2. ↑ Published in Leipzig 1847–1848
  3. ^ Australian Dictionary of Biography
  4. ^ G. Listemann: My emigration to South Australia and return to the fatherland . Hayn, Berlin 1851, (Schomburgk is repeatedly mentioned by the author because they traveled together.)
  5. ^ E. Ward: The Vineyards and Orchards of South Australia . Adelaide, 1862.
  6. ↑ Gawler Museum ( Memento of the original from August 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nationaltrustsa.org.au
  7. ^ Australian Dictionary of Biography
  8. ^ Alfred Löhr: A palm house from Bremen for Adelaide. In: Bremisches Jahrbuch 97, 2018, pp. 51–92
  9. ↑ biography with picture
  10. ^ Catalog of the plants under cultivation in the Government Botanic Garden, Adelaide, South Australia. Adelaide, 1878
  11. ^ Member entry of Richard Moritz Schomburgk at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on December 1, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Schomburgk, Moritz Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist and gardener
DATE OF BIRTH October 5, 1811
PLACE OF BIRTH Freyburg (Unstrut)
DATE OF DEATH March 24, 1891
Place of death Adelaide