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Theodor von Heldreich
Theodor Heinrich Hermann von Heldreich (3 March 1822 – 7 September 1902) was a German botanist born in Dresden. In 1851, he settled in Greece for the rest of his life. He carried out botanical experiments in the country. He published thirteen volumes of the "Herbarium Graecum Normale" between 1856 and 1896. In Greece, he served as director of the National Garden of Athens for over 50 years. He was also director of the natural history museum of Athens. Heldreich was good friends with Charles Darwin.[1] BiographyScion of an old aristocratic family, he was the son of Conrad Friedrich Robert Heldreich and Amalia Charlotte Humbold. He initially studied philosophy. A love of botany, however, took him to Montpellier in 1837 to study under Professor Michel Félix Dunal. He later completed his botanical education in Geneva (1838–1842). In 1841, he was honoured by botanist Pierre Edmond Boissier, who named a genus of plants (in family Brassicaceae) from Palestine and Turkey Heldreichia.[2][3] His first botanical expedition was to Sicily, after which he published his first work "Tre nuove specie di piante scoverte nella Sicilia". From 1843 to 1848, he travelled extensively throughout Italy, Greece, Asia Minor and Crete. During 1849 and 1850 he lived in England, and then for a year in Paris where he served as curator of P. Barker Webb's herbarium. In 1851, he settled permanently in Greece, where he carried out rigorous botanical investigations. He started to distribute at least eight exsiccata series, among them publishing sixteen volumes of the "Herbarium Graecum Normale" between 1856 and 1900.[4] In Greece he served as director of the court garden for over 50 years, as well as director of the natural history museum, where in addition to the department of botany he helped create departments of zoology and paleontology. It was during this period, in 1862 in Athens, Heldreich met John Stuart Mill who was travelling through Greece with his stepdaughter, Helen Taylor (feminist), collecting specimens of the Greek flora. Heldreich and Mill discussed plant identifications and exchanged collections. Their meeting is documented in John Stuart Mill's botanical notebooks lodged in the Archives of the London School of Economics.[5] A portion of the John Stuart Mill Herbarium, believed to be in the vicinity of 4000 specimens, is housed at the National Herbarium of Victoria (MEL) and within this portion are contained a set of Heldreich specimens, primarily from the Attica and Crete regions of Greece.[6] Heldreich discovered seven new genera and 700 new species of plants, 70 of which bear his name. Between 1880 and 1883 he taught natural history to the children of the royal family. In 1855 Theodor von Heldreich married Sofia, daughter of I. Katakouzinos and granddaughter of Greek scholar and patriot, Konstantinos Koumas. With Sofia he had two daughters, Karolina, who married Gangolf von Kieseritzky, Curator of Antiquities at the Imperial Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and Ioanna, who married Mark Mindler, attorney and head of the stenographer's office of the Greek Parliament. Theodor von Heldreich was a good friend of Charles Darwin. He died in Athens on 7 September 1902. His grave can still be found in the First Cemetery of Athens. Standard author abbreviationThe standard author abbreviation Heldr. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[7] Published worksIn addition to a great number of monographs published in reputable journals in Greece and abroad, he also published scholarly works in Greek, Latin, German, Italian and French, including:
In 1880, he published a romance entitled "Mussinitza", in 1887 "A Sketch on the Death of Professor of Botany and Poet Theodoros G. Orphanides", in 1887 "The Flower, from a Historical, Natural and Aesthetic Viewpoint", and in 1889 "The Lily, Examined from a Fictional and Historical Perspective". EponymyThe plant genus Heldreichia (endemic to Turkey with 3 species) the plant taxa Acer heldreichii, Allium heldreichii, Carum heldreichii, Chaerophyllum heldreichii, Centaurea heldreichii, Cirsium heldreichii, Crepis heldreichiana, Helichrysum heldreichii, Hieracium heldreichii, Alyssum heldreichii, Jasione heldreichii, Trifolium heldreichianum, Ramonda heldreichii, Muscari heldreichii, Juncus heldreichianus, Gagea heldreichii, Alcea heldreichii, Goniolimon heldreichii, Myosurus heldreichii, Crataegus heldreichii, Galium heldreichii, Viola heldreichiana, Pinus heldreichii, Isoetes heldreichii, the praying mantis Ameles heldreichi, and the grasshopper Glyphotmethis heldreichi are some species named after him. References
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