Following graduation from the University of Strasbourg, he worked as a curator at the Natural History Museum in Strasbourg, becoming director of the museum in 1839. The museum has a bust of Schimper at the top of the stairs.
Schimper's contributions to biology were primarily in the specialized fields of bryology (study of mosses) and paleobotany (study of plant fossils). He spent considerable time collecting botanical specimens in his travels throughout Europe. Together with Jean-Baptiste Mougeot, Antoine Mougeot and Chrétien Géofroy Nestler he edited three exsiccatae.[1] Among his writings was the six-volume Bryologia Europaea, an epic work that was published between 1836 and 1855. It was co-written with Philipp Bruch (1781–1847), and it described every species of European moss known at the time.
Schimper also made significant contributions in geology. In 1874, he proposed a new scientific subdivision of geological time. He called the new epoch the "Paleocene Era", of which he based on paleobotanical findings from the Paris Basin.[2]
A street bears his name in the Orangerie quarter of Strasbourg.
Writings
"Bryologia europaea" (Stuttgart, 1836–55, six volumes).
Monographie des plantes du fossiles grès bigarré de la chaine des Vosges, 1841 – Monograph on fossil plants from the variegated sandstone of the Vosges Mountains.
Recherches sur les mousses anatomiques et morphologiques, 1850 – Research on the anatomy and morphology of mosses.
Mémoire pour servir à l'histoire naturelle des Sphagnum, 1854 – Treatise on the natural history of sphagnum.
"Synopsis muscorum europaeorum" (1860, second edition in 1876).
Le terrain de transition des Vosges, 1862 – The changing terrain of Vosges.
Traité de Paléontologie végétale (1869 to 1874 in two volumes) – Treatise on paleobotany.[5][6]