Theodor Heinrich Hermann von Heldreich was a German botanist, who was born on 3 March 1822 in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

 (the son of Conrad Friedrich Robert Heldreich and Amalia Charlotte Humbold) and died on 7 September 1902 in Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

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Scion of an old aristocratic family, he initially studied philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

. A love of botany

Botany

Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

, however, took him to Montpelier

Montpelier

Montpelier or Montpellier is the name of several places:in Canada:* Montpellier, Quebec* Montpellier , a train station in Montreal, Canadain France:* Montpellier, a city in southern France** The University of Montpellierin Ireland:...

 in 1837 to study under Professor Dunal. He later completed his botanical education in Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

 (1838-1842). His first botanical expedition was to Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

, after which he published his first work “Tre nuove specie di piante scoverte nella Sicilia.” From 1843 to 1848 he travelled extensively throughout Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

 and Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

. During 1849 and 1850 he lived in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, 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

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, where he carried out rigorous botanical investigations, publishing thirteen volumes of the “Herbarium Graecum Normale” between 1856 and 1896. In Greece he served as director of the botanical gardens 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. Between 1880 and 1883 he taught natural history to the children of the royal family.

In 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:

♦ “Ueber Griechische Arbutus Arten” (1844)

♦ “Catalogus Plantarum Hispanicarum in Provincia Giennensi” (1850)

♦ “Ueber die neue arkadische Tanne” (1860)

♦ “Descriptio specierum novarum” (1860)

♦ “Zur Kenntniss der griechischen Tannen” (1861)

♦ “Ueber Pflanzen der griechischen, insbesondere der Attischen Flora, die als Zierpflanzen empfehlenswerthsind” (1861)

♦ “Tulipa Orphanidea Boiss und die Tulpen Griechenlands” (1862)

♦ “Die Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands” with particular reference to modern Greek and Pelasgic common names (Athens 1862)

♦ “Sertulum plantarum novarum vel. minus cognitarum Florae Hellenicae” (Florence 1876)

♦ “Zwei neue Pflanzenarten der Jonischen Inseln” (Vienna, 1877)

♦ “Ueber die Liliaceen-Gattung Leopoldia und ihre Arten” (Moscow 1878)

♦ “La Faune de la Grèce” (Athens 1878)

♦ “Der Asphodelos, ein griechisches Pflanzenbild” (Berlin 1881)

♦ “Flore de l’ile de Céphalonie” (Lausanne 1883)

♦ “On a Botanical Excursion in Attica” (Athens 1883)

♦ “Bericht über die botanischen Ergebaisse einer Bereisung Thessaliens” (Berlin 1883)

♦ “On the Hyoscyamus” (Athens 1884)

♦ “On the Hop (Humulus lupulus) and its cultivation in Greece” (Athens 1885)

♦ “Note sur une nouvelle espèce de Centaurea de l’ile de Crète” (Paris 1890)

♦ “The Flora of Mt. Parnassus” (Athens 1890)

♦ “Homeric Flora” (Athens 1896)

♦ “Study on the Pellitory (Parietaria), a Medicinal Herb of the Ancients” (Athens 1899)

♦ “The Flora of Aegina” (Athens, 1898)

♦ “On the Strychnos of the Ancients” (Athens, 1899)

♦ “The Flora of Thera” (Athens 1899)

♦ “On the Plants Providing Greek Tea” (Athens 1900)

♦ “Botany in Relation to Mathematics” (Athens 1901)

♦ “Contributions to the Compilation of a Flora of the Cyclades” (Athens 1901)

♦ “Fungi in the Economy of Nature” (Athens 1901).

In 1880 he published a romance entitled “Mussinitza,” in 1887 “A Sketch on the Death of Professor of Botany and Poet Theodoros G. Orfanides,” in 1887 “The Flower, from a Historical, Natural and Aesthetic Viewpoint,” and in 1889 “The Lily, Examined from a Fictional and Historical Perspective.” Heldreich discovered seven new genera and 700 new species of plants, 70 of which bear his name.

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

Mark Mindler

Mark Joseph Mindler was a Greek civil servant and volunteer youth educator, founder of the first Greek Scouting group....

, attorney and head of the stenographer’s office of the Greek Parliament. Theodor von Heldreich was a good friend of Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

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