Fryderyk Michał Szubert (18 April 1787 – 5 May 1860) was a Polish biologist and botanist who served as the first director of the Botanical Garden in Warsaw. He wrote extensively on the flora of Poland.

Life and work

Szubert (originally Schubert) was born in a German origin family at Ząbki near Warsaw to Bogumił who served in the court of Brühl and Joanna née Rudzka. Educated at the Warsaw Lyceum, he went to Paris in 1809 and attended the lectures of the botanists

Charles-François Brisseau de Mirbel Charles-François Brisseau de Mirbel (27 March 1776 – 12 September 1854) was a French botanist and politician. He was a founder of the science of plant cell biology, cytology. A native Parisian, at the age of twenty, he became an assistant- ...

and

Antoine Laurent de Jussieu Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (; 12 April 1748 – 17 September 1836) was a French botanist, notable as the first to publish a natural classification of flowering plants; much of his system remains in use today. His classification was based on an e ...

. He contributed to Mirbel's ''Éléments de physiologie végétale et de botanique'' (1815). Returning to Poland in 1813 he taught botany at the Lyceum and forestry at the School of Law and Administration. In 1816, he was appointed to the newly founded

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public university, public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well ...

as a professor of botany and worked there until the university was closed in 1831 following the

November Uprising The November Uprising (1830–31) (), also known as the Polish–Russian War 1830–31 or the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in Russian Partition, the heartland of Partitions of Poland, partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. ...

. He was also in charge of the botanical garden of the palace from 1816 and in 1818 he founded a new botanical garden in the Royal Łazienki Park which he directed until 1846. He collected extensively for his herbarium while at the university and his students included

Jakub Ignacy Waga Jakub Ignacy Waga (26 July 1800 – 23 February 1872) was a Polish botanist, educator, and Piarist. Along with his brother Antoni Waga he published an early list of the plants of Poland. Life and work Waga was born at Grabow near Łomża to la ...

and

Wojciech Jastrzębowski Wojciech Bogumił Jastrzębowski (; 19 April 1799 – 30 December 1882) was a Polish scientist, naturalist, and inventor; professor of botany, physics, zoology, and horticulture at Instytut Rolniczo-Leśny in Warsaw's Marymont district; a foun ...

. He served in the artillery during the November Uprising of 1830–31. From 1836 he served as a professor of botany at the Warsaw School of Pharmacy. The tree initially named as ''

Cupressus disticha ''Cupressus'' (common name cypress) is one of several genus, genera of evergreen conifers within the Family (biology), family Cupressaceae; for the others, see cypress. It is considered a Polyphyly, polyphyletic group. Based on genetic and morpho ...

'' and now known as ''

Taxodium distichum ''Taxodium distichum'' (baldcypress, bald-cypress, bald cypress, swamp cypress; ; ''cipre'' in Louisiana) is a deciduous conifer in the family Cupressaceae. It is native to the southeastern United States. Hardy and tough, this tree adapts to a ...

'' was named ''Schubertia disticha'' in his honour but that genus name is now a synonym. Szubert married Józefa Zofia née Szwarc (died 1878). A freemason, he was member of the Masonic lodge "Göttin von Eleusis" and honorary member of the "Temple of Minerva" lodge. He died in 1860 and was buried in Płock and the remains were moved in 1862 to the Warsaw Evangelical-Augsburg cemetery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Szubert, Michal 19th-century Polish botanists Naturalists from the Russian Empire 1787 births 1860 deaths