Rudolf Schlechter

Friedrich Richard Rudolf Schlechter (16 October 1872 – 16 November 1925) was a German taxonomist, botanist, and author of several works on orchids.

Rudolf Schlechter
Rudolf Schlechter
Born	Friedrich Richard Rudolf Schlechter (1872-10-16)16 October 1872 Berlin, Germany
Died	16 November 1925(1925-11-16) (aged 53) Berlin, Germany
Scientific career
Fields	Botanist
Author abbrev. (zoology)	Schltr.

He went on botanical expeditions in Africa, Indonesia, New Guinea, South and Central America and Australia.^[1]

His vast herbarium was destroyed during the bombing of Berlin in 1945.

Early life

Rudolf Schlechter was born on 16 October 1872 in Berlin, the third of six children; his father Hugo Schlechter was a lithographer.^[2] After finishing school at the Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium he started a horticulture education at a gardening market. He later worked at the University of Berlin garden.^[3] There he worked as an assistant till the autumn of 1891. His brother was Max Schlechter (1874–1960), was a German trader and collector of natural history specimens.^[4]

Career

Schlechter began his career of botanical fieldwork by leaving Europe in 1891 to journey to Africa;^[5] he later traveled across Indonesia and Australia. Throughout his career he has focused on expanding his research collection of orchids. He was a leader of expeditions in German Africa,^[5] investigating the Caoutchouc industry, but continually collecting plant specimens. He also lived extensively in German New Guinea in the first decade of the new century. Before World War I he settled in Berlin, marrying his wife Alexandra Schlechter and becoming curator of Berlin's botanical garden in Dahlem.^[3] He is estimated to have proposed one thousand new species in the family Orchidaceae alone.^[6] In his 1901-1902 expedition he discovered 230 orchid species, while on his 1907-1910 expedition he discovered 1,100 additional orchid species.^[7]

Works

• Die Orchideen von Deutsch-Neu-Guinea, 1914
• Die Orchideen, ihre Beschreibung, Kultur und Züchtung, 1915
• Orchideologiae sino-japonicae prodromus, 1919
• Orchidaceae Powellianae Panamenses, 1922
• Die Orchideenflora der südamerikanischen Kordillerenstaaten (written with Rudolf Mansfeld), 1919–1929
• Monographie und Iconographie der Orchideen Europas und des Mittelmeergebietes (written with G. Keller), 1925–1943
• Blütenanalysen neuer Orchideen (published by R. Mansfeld), 1930–1934

Honours

Several genera of plants have been named in his honour,^[9] Schlechterella (in the Apocynaceae family),^[10]Schlechterina (in the Passifloraceae family),^[11] and also Rudolfiella Hoehne, (in the Orchidaceae family).^[12]