Rudolf Schlechter

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rudolf Schlechter

Friedrich Richard Rudolf Schlechter (born October 16, 1872 in Berlin ; † November 15, 1925 there ) was a German botanist . He was curator at the Botanical Museum Berlin and an orchid specialist. Its official botanical author abbreviation is “ Schltr. "; the long form " Schlechter " was also used earlier .

Rudolf Schlechter undertook extensive collecting trips to Africa , Central and South America , Indonesia , Australia and New Guinea . His extensive plant collection was lost in the bombing of Berlin in 1945.

Live and act

Childhood and first education

Rudolf Schlechter was born on October 16, 1872 in Berlin as the third of six children. His father Hugo Schlechter was a lithographer by profession. After attending the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium he did an apprenticeship as a gardener, first in the commercial gardening of Mrs. Bluth, then in the Berlin university garden, where he found employment as an assistant until autumn 1891.

Travel time (1891 to 1910)

He undertook his first research trip to South Africa from November 1891 to April 1895, where he intensively researched the flora around Cape Town and especially the coastal districts. During this time he carried out herbariological studies at Harry Bolus' herbarium and held the position of phylloxera inspector. He temporarily moved his headquarters to Durban and undertook collecting trips to Natal and the Transvaal. Hans Schinz had acquired the 7,000 main documents of this trip for the Museum of the Zurich Botanical Garden ; the Berlin State Herbarium received a 4500-piece collection of duplicates.

Soon after his return to Germany, Schlechter prepared a second trip to the Cape, which was to last from January 1896 to March 1898. This time the Berlin Botanical Museum secured the rights to the main collection of the trip. Schlechter's younger brother Max took part in the trip and was responsible for drying and transferring the herbarium records. Part of the collecting trips was carried out with a 10-horse ox cart. Destinations included Klein-Namaland and the Lamberts Bay with the offshore Guano Islands. On the journey home from South Africa, Schlechter made a stop in Mozambique, where he started collecting from Lourenco Marques on Delagoa Bay in the tropical forest and dry areas. On behalf of an industrial company, he went on an expedition to research rubber plants, during which he fell ill with a febrile tropical disease. Among other things, he discovered a rubber-rich species of the genus Ficus and a large number of epiphytic orchids, including the genus Angraecum . On the way home he suffered badly from his tropical disease and was close to death.

When he returned, Schlechter began studying botany and geology at the University of Berlin. His teachers included Adolf Engler , Simon Schwendener , Ludwig Diels , Gustav Lindau , Reinhardt, Wilhelm von Branca and Paulsen.

On behalf of the Colonial Economic Committee , which intended to introduce the profitable rubber cultivation, especially in the British colonies, also in the German colonies, he was appointed head of a rubber expedition to West Africa under Otto Warburg's mediation. This expedition, which led to Cameroon, Congo and Togo, lasted from February 1899 to May 1900. In the course of this expedition, plants of the genus Kickxia , known in Lagos as so-called silk rubber , were first discovered in the Joruba region in the British colony of Lagos . collected.

A few months after his return from West Africa, Schlechter was once again entrusted with a trip by the Colonial Economic Committee, this time to the Indonesian archipelago, in particular to the German colonies Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land and Bismarck-Archipel . The main subject of this trip, which lasted from December 1900 to March 1903, was research, conservation and questions about the cultivation of gutta-percha trees ( Palaquium ). In Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land he discovered a new species that produced gutta-percha, which he named Palaquium Supfianum . In addition to the main research goal, Schlechter devoted himself, as on all of his travels, to the flora of the country in general and, above all, to his favorite specialty, the orchids. His health was severely impaired by numerous fever attacks during this trip. Before returning to Europe, Schlechter added stays in Australia, New Caledonia and Ceylon.

After his return in 1903 Schlechter completed his university studies and received his doctorate on December 3, 1904; his dissertation was titled Plant Geographical Structure of the Island of New Caledonia . He then took over identification work at the Botanical Museum Berlin, especially for the silk plants (Asclepiadoideae) and orchids.

From June to December 1905 Schlechter took a shorter trip to Cameroon to inspect the cultivated Kickxia plants for the Colonial Economic Committee and to carry out tapping tests on the now five-year-old plants.

With funds raised partly by the German Colonial Society, partly by the German government and partly by the rubber processing industry, a second gutta-percha and rubber expedition to Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land was equipped under the direction of Dr. Hahl; Schlechter was again entrusted with carrying out the expedition. The journey lasted from October 1906 to May 1910. Schlechter wrote down the results of this journey in a 171-page work The Gutta-Percha and Rubber Expedition of the Colonial Economy. Committees (economic committee of the German Colonial Society) according to Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land 1907–1909 documented. On the return trip, Schlechter added even shorter group trips to Celebes , Java and Sumatra .

During his 18 years of traveling from 1891 to 1910, Schlechter visited the natural history museums of London, Paris, Leiden, Brussels and Vienna, sometimes several times.

After the travel time

At the beginning of his last trip, Schlechter met Alexandra Vasilewna Sobennikoff , the daughter of a Russian tea wholesaler. At the end of the trip, the two married. In her honor he named the plant genus Sobennikoffia Schltr. from the orchid family .

In the spring of 1913 he was employed as an assistant at the Berlin Botanical Museum and thus achieved a secure position in life. In 1913, the ownership of his main collection, which included his valuable orchid collection in particular, was contractually transferred to the Botanical Museum Berlin. Bad family happiness was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. He was called up for military service and deployed to the front in Flanders . After the war ended, it was not until the spring of 1921 that Schlechter received the longed-for appointment as curator .

As a kind of scientific competition between German, British and Dutch to the botanical exploration of New Guinea broke out, German contributions under the title were contributions to the Flora of Papua Sien in the Botanical annals of Adolf Engler published. Schlechter contributed intensively with the treatment of a large number of plant families, including Saxifragaceae, Cunoniaceae, Ericaceae, Scrophulariaceae and Gesneraceae.

Schlechter performed his greatest research work for the orchids; he may have described around 1000 species for the first time.

Schlechter suffered from the long-term effects of several tropical diseases. He died in Berlin at the age of 53, leaving behind his wife and two school-age daughters.

Memberships, honors

Schlechter joined the Botanical Association for the Province of Brandenburg as a member in 1891. In the German Horticultural Society he was head of the journal Orchis for a number of years , most of which he himself contributed during this time.

In 1918 he was elected a member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina .

After him, among other things, the plant genera Schlechterella K. Schum. from the family of the dog poison plants (Apocynaceae), Schlechteria H. Bol. from the cruciferous family (Brassicaceae), Schlechterina Harms from the passion flower family (Passifloraceae), Rudolfiella Hoehne and Rudolfangraecum Szlach., Mytnik & Grochocka from the orchid family (Orchidaceae) and Schlechterina Harms (Apiaceae H. Wolff from the umbelliferous family ) named. The genus Schlechteranthus Schwant. from the family of aizoaceae (Aizoaceae), however, his brother, Max Schlechter (1874-1960) is named in honor.

Fonts

A list of works can be found in the article Rudolf Schlechter's Life and Work by Theodor Loesener , published in 1926 (see literature). Here is a selection of some fonts:

  • The orchids of German New Guinea , 1914
  • The orchids, their description, culture and breeding , 1915, Paul-Parey-Verlag, 836 pages and 12 plates
  • Orchideologiae sino-japonicae prodromus , 1919
  • The orchid flora of the South American Cordilleras (together with Rudolf Mansfeld ), 1919–1929
  • Monograph and iconography of orchids in Europe and the Mediterranean region (together with G. Keller), 1925–1943
  • Flower analysis of new orchids , (edited by R. Mansfeld), 1930–1934

literature

  • Theodor Loesener : Rudolf Schlechters life and work . In: Note sheet of the Royal Botanical Garden and Museum in Berlin . tape 9 , no. 89 , November 1926, p. 912-958 .

swell

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c 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. ^ Member entry of Rudolf Schlechter at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 21, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Worse, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schlechter, Friedrich Richard Rudolf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH November 15, 1925
Place of death Berlin