
Daniel Ludwig Ernst Betche (31 December 1851, in
Potsdam
Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...
– 28 June 1913, in
Sydney
Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
) was a German-Australian
horticulturist
Horticulture (from ) is the art and science of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs and ornamental plants. Horticulture is commonly associated with the more professional and technical aspects of plant cultivation on a smaller and mo ...
and
botanist
Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...
.
His mother died at his birth and he was of delicate constitution all his life. His father was sufficiently well off to send him to winter in the warmer climate of
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
.
He attended horticultural college in
Potsdam
Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...
and later worked at the municipal gardens in
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
. In 1874 he began work as a gardener in the nursery of
Louis van Houtte
Louis may refer to:
People
* Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name
* Louis (surname)
* Louis (singer), Serbian singer
Other uses
* Louis (coin), a French coin
* HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy
See also
* ...
in
Ghent
Ghent ( ; ; historically known as ''Gaunt'' in English) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the Provinces of Belgium, province ...
. Around 1880, he visited
Samoa
Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa and known until 1997 as Western Samoa, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania, in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu), two smaller, inhabited ...
,
Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...
, the
Marshall
Marshall may refer to:
Places
Australia
*Marshall, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria
** Marshall railway station
Canada
* Marshall, Saskatchewan
* The Marshall, a mountain in British Columbia
Liberia
* Marshall, Liberia
Marshall Is ...
and
Caroline Islands
The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the cen ...
. From his travels in the South Seas, he issued two papers on flora native to the islands.
Fern
The ferns (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta) are a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissue ...
s collected in the islands were shipped to the
University of Leipzig
Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...
, and the rest of the specimens were given to botanist
Ferdinand von Mueller
Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Victoria, Australia ...
.
[Betche, Ernst (1851–1913) by Terri McCormack]
Australian Dictionary of Biography[Betche, D. Ernst L. (1851-1913)]
JSTOR Global Plants
In September 1881 he was hired as a collector at the
Sydney Botanical Gardens in
New South Wales
New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...
. In March 1897, he became a botanical assistant to
Joseph Maiden
Joseph Henry Maiden (25 April 1859 – 16 November 1925) was a botanist who made a major contribution to knowledge of the Australian flora, especially the genus ''Eucalyptus''. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation when citing ...
. In Australia, he distinguished himself in the field of
botanical systematics.
[
The botanical genus '' Betchea'' (family ]Cunoniaceae
Cunoniaceae is a family of 27 genera and about 335 species of woody plants in the order Oxalidales, mostly found in the tropical and wet temperate regions of the Southern Hemisphere. The greatest diversity of genera are in Australia and Tasmania ...
) was named in his honor by Rudolf Schlechter
Friedrich Richard Rudolf Schlechter (16 October 1872 – 16 November 1925) was a German taxonomist, botanist, and author of several works on orchids.
He went on botanical expeditions in Africa, Indonesia, New Guinea, South and Central America an ...
.CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names: Common Names, Scientific Names, Eponyms
by Umberto Quattrocchi
Principal works
* "Handbook of the Flora of New South Wales", 1893 (with Charles Moore).
* "A Census of New South Wales Plants", 1916 (with Joseph Maiden).[
]
Taxonomy
References
External links
IPNI
List of plants described and co-described by Betche.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Betche, Ernst
20th-century Australian botanists
German gardeners
Scientists from the Kingdom of Prussia
Emigrants from the German Empire
German emigrants to Australia
Colony of New South Wales people
1851 births
1913 deaths
Botanists active in Australia
Scientists from Potsdam
19th-century Australian botanists
19th-century German botanists