Theodor Heinrich Hermann von Heldreich (3 March 1822 – 7 September 1902) was a German botanist born in

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

. In 1851, he settled in Greece for the rest of his life. He carried out botanical experiments in the country. He published thirteen volumes of the "Herbarium Graecum Normale" between 1856 and 1896. In Greece, he served as director of the National Garden of Athens for over 50 years. He was also director of the natural history museum of Athens. Heldreich was good friends with

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

Biography

Scion of an old aristocratic family, he was the son of Conrad Friedrich Robert Heldreich and Amalia Charlotte Humbold. He initially studied

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

. A love of

botany 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 ...

, however, took him to

Montpellier Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...

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

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

(1838–1842). In 1841, he was honoured by botanist

Pierre Edmond Boissier Pierre Edmond Boissier (25 May 1810 Geneva – 25 September 1885 Valeyres-sous-Rances) was a Swiss prominent botanist, explorer and mathematician. He was the son of Jacques Boissier (1784-1857) and Caroline Butini (1786-1836), daughter of Pierr ...

, who named a genus of plants (in family

Brassicaceae Brassicaceae () or (the older but equally valid) Cruciferae () is a medium-sized and economically important Family (biology), family of flowering plants commonly known as the mustards, the crucifers, or the cabbage family. Most are herbaceous pla ...

) from Palestine and Turkey '' Heldreichia''. His first botanical expedition was to

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

, after which he published his first work "Tre nuove specie di piante scoverte nella Sicilia". From 1843 to 1848, he travelled extensively throughout Italy, Greece, Asia Minor and Crete. During 1849 and 1850 he lived in England, and then for a year in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

where he served as curator of P. Barker Webb's

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant biological specimen, specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sh ...

. In 1851, he settled permanently in Greece, where he carried out rigorous botanical investigations. He started to distribute at least eight

exsiccata Exsiccata (Latin, ''gen.'' -ae, ''plur.'' -ae) is a work with "published, uniform, numbered set of preserved specimens distributed with printed labels". Typically, exsiccatae are numbered collections of dried herbarium Biological specimen, spe ...

series, among them publishing sixteen volumes of the "Herbarium Graecum Normale" between 1856 and 1900.Triebel, D. & Scholz, P. 2001–2024 ''IndExs – Index of Exsiccatae''. Botanische Staatssammlung München: http://indexs.botanischestaatssammlung.de. – München, Germany. In Greece he served as director of the court garden 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. It was during this period, in 1862 in

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, Heldreich met

John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism and social liberalism, he contributed widely to s ...

who was travelling through Greece with his stepdaughter,

Helen Taylor (feminist) Helen Taylor (31 July 1831 – 29 January 1907) was an English feminist, writer and actress. She was the daughter of Harriet Taylor Mill and stepdaughter of John Stuart Mill. After the death of her mother she lived and worked with Mill, and to ...

, collecting specimens of the Greek flora. Heldreich and Mill discussed plant identifications and exchanged collections. Their meeting is documented in John Stuart Mill's botanical notebooks lodged in the Archives of the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

. A portion of the John Stuart Mill Herbarium, believed to be in the vicinity of 4000 specimens, is housed at the

National Herbarium of Victoria The National Herbarium of Victoria (Index Herbariorum code: MEL) is one of Australia's earliest herbaria and the oldest scientific institution in Victoria. Its 1.56 million specimens of preserved plants, fungi and algae—collectively known ...

(MEL) and within this portion are contained a set of Heldreich specimens, primarily from the

Attica Attica (, ''Attikḗ'' (Ancient Greek) or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital city, capital of Greece and the core cit ...

and

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

regions of Greece. Heldreich discovered seven new genera and 700 new species of plants, 70 of which bear his name. Between 1880 and 1883 he taught natural history to the children of the royal family. 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, attorney and head of the stenographer's office of the

Greek Parliament The Parliament of the Hellenes (), commonly known as the Hellenic Parliament (), is the unicameral legislature of Greece, located in the Old Royal Palace, overlooking Syntagma Square in Athens. The parliament is the supreme democratic instit ...

. Theodor von Heldreich was a good friend of

. He died in

on 7 September 1902. His grave can still be found in the First Cemetery of Athens.

Standard author abbreviation

Published works

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. Orphanides", in 1887 "The Flower, from a Historical, Natural and Aesthetic Viewpoint", and in 1889 "The Lily, Examined from a Fictional and Historical Perspective". Heldrich also published an exsiccata-like specimen series under the title "Reliquiae Orphanideae curante Th. de Heldreich anno 188. emissae".

Eponymy

The plant genus '' Heldreichia'' (endemic to

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

with 3 species) the plant

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

'' Acer heldreichii'', '' Allium heldreichii'', '' Carum heldreichii'', '' Chaerophyllum heldreichii'', '' Centaurea heldreichii'', '' Cirsium heldreichii'', '' Crepis heldreichiana'', '' Helichrysum heldreichii'', '' Hieracium heldreichii'', '' Alyssum heldreichii'', '' Jasione heldreichii'', '' Trifolium heldreichianum'', Ramonda heldreichii'', Muscari heldreichii, Juncus heldreichianus, Gagea heldreichii, Alcea heldreichii'', '' Goniolimon heldreichii, Myosurus heldreichii, Crataegus heldreichii'', '' Galium heldreichii, Viola heldreichiana, Pinus heldreichii'', '' Isoetes heldreichii,'' the

praying mantis Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate ...

'' Ameles heldreichi'', and the

grasshopper Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are amongst what are possibly the most ancient living groups of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. Grassh ...

'' Glyphotmethis heldreichi'' are some species named after him.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Heldreich 1822 births 1902 deaths 19th-century German botanists Scientists from Dresden University of Montpellier alumni Taxon authorities of Hypericum species John Stuart Mill Greek botanists 19th-century Greek educators 19th-century Greek scientists Greek people of German descent