Franz Gerhard Eschweiler (1796 – 4 July 1831) was a German
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 ...
.
Eschweiler was born in
Cologne
Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...
in 1796, the son of a district judge. After graduating from high school in Cologne, he first studied law in
Bonn
Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...
, but then switched to
natural science
Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...
s and continued his studies at the
University of Landshut
The University of Applied Sciences Landshut (''Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften Landshut'') is a Fachhochschule in Landshut, between Munich and Regensburg, with over 5000 students and over 100 professors. Its main focus areas are enginee ...
. There he received his doctorate in medicine in 1824.
He then turned to botany and worked on the material collected by
Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius
Carl Friedrich Philipp (Karl Friedrich Philipp) von Martius (17 April 1794 – 13 December 1868) was a German botany, botanist and explorer. Between 1817 and 1820, he travelled 10,000 km through Brazil while collecting botanical specimens. His m ...
in Brazil. In recognition of this collaboration, the Brazilian shrub genus ''
Eschweilera
''Eschweilera'' is a genus of woody plants in the family Lecythidaceae first described as a genus in 1828.
Eschweiler worked in the
Regensburg Botanical Society
The Regensburg Botanical Society (''Regensburgische Botanische Gesellschaft''), founded 1790 in the city of Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany, is the oldest extant scientific society focused on botany. It was initially supported by the Prince-Archbis ...
and from 1827 received a teaching position as a lecturer in natural history at the Royal Lyceum in Regensburg. This activity had to be interrupted several times due to his deteriorating health, and he died on 4 July 1831.