Cilician Surprise. Pelargonium endlicherianum Fenzl, Endlicher's Crane's-bill, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Under the auspices and financing of then Emperor Ferdinand 1 of Austria (1793-1875, emperor until his abdication in 1848), the Austrian geologist and engineer Joseph Russegger (1802-1863) between 1836 and 1841 undertook a scientific expedition through Asia Minor, the Near East and northern Africa (including parts of the Sudan). He published his adventures in four hefty volumes (they make for a fine read!) and the botanical appendix was provided by Eduard Fenzl (1808-1879), director of the Imperial Botanical Cabinet at Vienna. Fenzl worked with the plants collected by one of Russegger's companions, intrepid Karl Georg Theodor Kotschy (1813-1866), whom I've several times earlier mentioned in these pages.
In present-day Turkey not far from Mersin, near the Cilician Gates - well-known to any classical scholar or military historian - Kotschy must've been quite surprised to find this flower 'in montibus Tauri occidentalis circa Gülek' (the Cilician Gates are also known as the Gülek Pass). It's a Pelargonium! One of the very few of that race of flowers which grows naturally outside of southern Africa and moreover in a very harsh climate.
The photo shows a flower with the stamenite masculine principle on the left and the pistilate feminine on the right.
I don't know whether it was Kotschy himself or rather Fenzl who named it (1841) for Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher (1804-1849), director of the Botanical Garden at Vienna. Likely it was Fenzl given institutional favoritisms.
If you get down to reading Russegger's fascinating and sometimes blood-curdling travelogue you might be surprised that he hardly ever mentions his travel companions but waxes long and eloquent on his own emotions during manifold adventures. Possibly he was rather an egotist... perhaps necessary for such an endeavor.
Cilician Surprise. Pelargonium endlicherianum Fenzl, Endlicher's Crane's-bill, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Under the auspices and financing of then Emperor Ferdinand 1 of Austria (1793-1875, emperor until his abdication in 1848), the Austrian geologist and engineer Joseph Russegger (1802-1863) between 1836 and 1841 undertook a scientific expedition through Asia Minor, the Near East and northern Africa (including parts of the Sudan). He published his adventures in four hefty volumes (they make for a fine read!) and the botanical appendix was provided by Eduard Fenzl (1808-1879), director of the Imperial Botanical Cabinet at Vienna. Fenzl worked with the plants collected by one of Russegger's companions, intrepid Karl Georg Theodor Kotschy (1813-1866), whom I've several times earlier mentioned in these pages.
In present-day Turkey not far from Mersin, near the Cilician Gates - well-known to any classical scholar or military historian - Kotschy must've been quite surprised to find this flower 'in montibus Tauri occidentalis circa Gülek' (the Cilician Gates are also known as the Gülek Pass). It's a Pelargonium! One of the very few of that race of flowers which grows naturally outside of southern Africa and moreover in a very harsh climate.
The photo shows a flower with the stamenite masculine principle on the left and the pistilate feminine on the right.
I don't know whether it was Kotschy himself or rather Fenzl who named it (1841) for Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher (1804-1849), director of the Botanical Garden at Vienna. Likely it was Fenzl given institutional favoritisms.
If you get down to reading Russegger's fascinating and sometimes blood-curdling travelogue you might be surprised that he hardly ever mentions his travel companions but waxes long and eloquent on his own emotions during manifold adventures. Possibly he was rather an egotist... perhaps necessary for such an endeavor.