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Ludwig Riedel (2 March 1790,
Ludwig Riedel (2 March 1790, Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
, Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
– 6 August 1861, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...
, Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
) was a German botanist. Riedel described relatively few species himself, but collected hundreds of new species, many named after him. The genus '' Riedelia'' (Ericaceae
The Ericaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family, found most commonly in acidic and infertile growing conditions. The family is large, with c.4250 known species spread across 124 genera, making it th ...
) was named for him by Meisner.
Biography
Riedel came to Brazil in 1821, invited to participate in the expedition organized by the German-Russian physician, naturalist, ethnographer and explorerBaron von Langsdorff
Georg Heinrich Freiherr von Langsdorff (8 April 1774 – 9 June 1852) was a German naturalist and explorer, as well as a Russian diplomat, better known by his Russian name, Grigori Ivanovich Langsdorf.
He was a naturalist and physician on the ...
. From 1821 to 1830 and from 1831 to 1836, Riedel worked in Brazil collecting plant
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclu ...
s for the Botanical Garden of Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
. In 1836 he accepted a permanent position in the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro, being the first foreigner with a permanent post in the museum. He founded and directed the department of botany and the Botanical Garden attached to it (Horto Florestal) until 1858.
Legacy
Ludwig Riedel's name is well known in Rio de Janeiro, once he was director of the Public Park, the National Museum and head of the Botanical Garden at the time of the empire.See also
*IPNI
The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) describes itself as "a database of the names and associated basic bibliographical details of seed plants, ferns and lycophytes." Coverage of plant names is best at the rank of species and genus. It incl ...
under riedelii, riedeliana and riedelianum
References