Feature Article
Moritz Richard Schomburgk (1811–1891)
Moritz Richard Schomburgk (1811-1891), botanist, was born on 5 October 1811 at Freyburg, Saxony, son of Johann Friedrich Ludwig Schomburgk, assistant Lutheran pastor, and his wife Christiane Juliane Wilhelmine, née Krippendorf. Educated at a Freyburg primary school and by a private tutor, in 1825 he began a gardening apprenticeship at Merseburg. After his military service with the Royal Guard at Berlin in 1831-34 he worked in the garden of a Berlin shooting range and in 1835 was a gardener at Sanssouci,...