Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher

Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher (born June 24 1804 in Preßburg (Bratislava), died March 28 1849 in Vienna) was an Austrian botanist, numismatist and Sinologist. He was a director of the Botanical Garden of Vienna.  

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He studied theology and received minor orders. In 1828 he was appointed to the Austrian national library to reorganize its manuscript collection. Concurrently he studied Natural History, in particular botany, and East-Asian languages. He wrote the fundamenals of Chinese grammar.

In 1840 he became professor at and director of the Botanical Garden of Vienna. He wrote a comprehensive description of the Plant Kingdom according to a natural system, at the time its most comprehensive description. As proposed by Endlicher, it contained images with text. It was published together with the reissue of Franz Unger's "Grundzüge der Botanik" (Fundamentals of Botany).

He was fundamental in establishing the Imperial Academy of Science (Akademie der Wissenschaften), but when contrary to his expectations the Baron Joseph Hammer von Purgstall was elected its president in his stead, he resigned in a tiff.

As a known liberal, he was asked to act as mediator during the revolution of 1848, but eventually was forced to leave Vienna for a time. In 1848 he also became a member of the Frankfurt Parliament and the assembly at Kroměříž.

He established the botanical journal Annalen des Wiener Museums der Naturgeschichte (1835 and on).

He described many new plant genera, perhaps most notably the genus Sequoia. The genus Endlicheria of the family Lauraceae was named in his honour.

Important works

• Genera Plantarum Secundum Ordines Naturales Disposita (1836-50)
• Synopsis Coniferarum (1847