Selmar Schönland

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Selmar Schönland
Timber collection at the Albany Museum

Selmar Schönland (born August 15, 1860 in Frankenhausen , Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt , † April 22, 1940 in Grahamstown ), later also Schonland , was a German botanist. Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " Schönland ".

Life

Egyptian mummy in the museum

Schönland studied in Berlin and Kiel. In 1883 he received his doctorate and between 1886 and 1889 worked as an assistant botanist under the direction of Professor Isaac Bayley Balfour for the Herbarium and Botanical Museum at Oxford University.

Schönland came to the South African Grahamstown as an immigrant in 1889 and took over the function of curator (in the function of director) of the Albany Museum . He held this position from 1889 to 1910 and was named Director from 1895 . Under his leadership, the museum quickly developed into an important collecting facility in South Africa. In the history of this museum, Schönland is the third director since it was founded.

When he took office, the collections were in a poorly organized condition. The holdings were housed in a very cramped situation in the City Hall. Many parts of the collection were found to be inadequately used due to poor presentation. Schönland expanded the exhibition area and began with new collections, for example with finds from ancient Egypt as well as Greek and Roman antiquity . The greatest attraction of this collection is now an Egyptian mummy .

The establishment of a botanical collection on a systematic and scientific basis also fell into this active development period of the Albany Museum. He is the founder of the Selmar Schönland Herbarium at Rhodes University , which was merged with the collection of this university in 1993 and now contains almost 200,000 copies. The museum's botanical collection was based on a foundation of Dr. Cardboard donated collection with over a thousand pressed plants.

Around 1900 the idea of ​​founding a university developed in Grahamstown. Schönland saw this as an opportunity to expand its scientific staff. As a result, JE Duerden took over the zoological and Ernest Schwarz the geological department of the museum. Schoenland received the first professorship in botany in 1905 at Rhodes University College, founded in 1904 . At the same time he resigned his membership in the Rhodes Council .

After he ended his function as museum director in 1910, he worked as curator of the herbarium until 1926. John Hewitt (director 1910-1958) followed him as museum director.

Personal

Schönland was very interested in the local flora. Through this interest he got in contact with Peter MacOwn , a botanist working in South Africa. He married the daughter of Peter MacOwan and in 1896 his son Basil Schonland was born.

Memberships

Selected publications and honors

  • For Engler & Prantl Schönland edited volumes II in The Natural Plant Families. 4. Commelinaceae 1887, III. 2a Crassulaceae 1890, IV. 5 Campanulaceae , Goodeniaceae and Candolleaceae 1889.
  • Selmar Schönland: A new species of Aloe from Namaqualand. In: Records Albany Museum, Grahamstown 1911, II. 3., pp. 225-230.

In his honor, the genus Schoenlandia Cornu from the family Tecophilaeaceae and several species, such as. E.g. Aloe × schoenlandii Baker , Euphorbia schoenlandii Pax , Brachystelma schonlandianum Schltr. and Sebaea schoenlandii Schinz .

literature

  • James Gore: Albany Museum, Celebrating 150 Years. Grahamstown 2005.
  • John Hewitt: Selmar Schönland. August, 1869 - May, 1940. In: Journal of South African Botany. Vol. 6, No. 4, 1940, pp. 195-204.
  • Robert Zander : Zander concise dictionary of plant names. Edited by Fritz Encke , Günther Buchheim, Siegmund Seybold . 15th edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-8001-5072-7 .
  • Roy Lubke, Estelle Brink: One hundred years of botany at Rhodes University. In: South African Journal of Science. Vol. 100, 2004, pp. 609-614, available online (English, PDF file).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Natural Science: A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress (Macmillan and Company), Vol. 12 (1898)
  2. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 , doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .

Web links

Commons : Selmar Schonland  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Schönland, Selmar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist
DATE OF BIRTH August 15, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankenhausen , Germany
DATE OF DEATH April 22, 1940
Place of death Grahamstown , South Africa