Joseph August Schenk (17 April 1815, in

Hallein Hallein () is a historic town in the Austrian state of Salzburg. It is the capital of Hallein district. Geography The town is located in the ''Tennengau'' region south of the City of Salzburg, stretching along the Salzach river in the shadow of ...

– 30 March 1891, in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

) was an Austrian-born, German botanist and

paleobotanist Paleobotany, which is also spelled as palaeobotany, is the branch of botany dealing with the recovery and identification of plant remains from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments (paleogeogr ...

. In 1837 he obtained his medical doctorate from the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

, followed by studies in botany at the Universities of

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 116,062 inhab ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

and

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. In 1840 he earned his PhD in botany at Munich and during the following year, received his habilitation for botany with the dissertation "''Genera et species Cyperacearum, quae in regno Graeco, archipelago et in insulis''". From 1850 to 1868, he was a full professor of botany at the

University of Würzburg The Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg (also referred to as the University of Würzburg, in German ''Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg'') is a public research university in Würzburg, Germany. The University of Würzburg is one of ...

, followed by a professorship at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

(1868 to 1887),Prof. Dr. med. et phil. Joseph August Schenk - Universität Leipzig
(biographical information) where he was a successor to Georg Heinrich Mettenius.ADB:Schenk, August
@ Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie At Leipzig, he was also director of its

botanical garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...

s. The genus '' Schenkia'' (family

Gentianaceae Gentianaceae is a family of flowering plants of 103 genera and about 1600 species. Etymology The family takes its name from the genus '' Gentiana'', named after the Illyrian king Gentius. Distribution Distribution is cosmopolitan. Characteri ...

) was named in honor by

August Grisebach August Heinrich Rudolf Grisebach () was a German botanist and phytogeographer. He was born in Hannover on 17 April 1814 and died in Göttingen on 9 May 1879. Biography Grisebach studied at the Lyceum in Hanover, the cloister-school at Ilfe ...

in 1853.

Published works

With

Christian Luerssen Christian Luerssen (6 May 1843, Bremen – 28 June 1916) was a German botanist. He was an authority in the field of pteridology. In 1872, at Leipzig, he graduated as a university teacher of botany, and was later appointed professor of bota ...

, he was co-author o
''Mittheilungen aus dem Gesammtgebiete der Botanik''
(Volume 1-2, 1874). Also, he made contributions towards Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen's "China" (Volume 4), and edited the section on

Alstroemeriaceae Alstroemeriaceae is a family of flowering plants, with 254 known species in four genera (Christenhusz & Byng 2016 ), almost entirely native to the Americas, from Central America to southern South America. One species of '' Luzuriaga'' occurs in ...

Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius Carl Friedrich Philipp (Karl Friedrich Philipp) von Martius (17 April 1794 – 13 December 1868) was a German botanist and explorer. Life Martius was born at Erlangen, the son of Prof Ernst Wilhelm Martius, court apothecary. He graduated PhD ...

' ''

Flora Brasiliensis ''Flora Brasiliensis'' is a book published between 1840 and 1906 by the editors Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, August Wilhelm Eichler, Ignatz Urban and many others. It contains taxonomic treatments of 22,767 species, mostly Brazilian angiosp ...

''. The following are a few of Schenk's principal works: * ''Flora der Umgebung von Würzburg. Aufzählung der um Würzburg vorkommenden phanerogamen Gefäßpflanzen. Ein Beitrag zur Flora von Bayern'', Regensburg 1848 - Flora around Würzburg, etc. * ''Beiträge zur Flora des Keupers und der rätischen Formation'', 1864 - Contributions to the flora of the

Keuper The Keuper is a lithostratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) in the subsurface of large parts of west and central Europe. The Keuper consists of dolomite, shales or claystones and evaporites that were deposited during the Middle and Late T ...

and Rhaetian formations. * ''Beiträge zur Flora der Vorwelt'', two volumes, Kassel 1866-1871 - Treatise on flora of the primeval world. * ''Die fossile Flora der Grenzschichten des Keupers und Lias Frankens'',

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

1867 - Fossil flora involving the boundary layers of the Keuper and

Franconia Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian languages, Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch''). The three Regierungsbezirk, administrative ...

Lias Lias may refer to: Geology * Lias Formation, a geologic formation in France *Lias Group, a lithostratigraphic unit in western Europe * Early Jurassic, an epoch People * Godfrey Lias, British author * Mohd Shamsudin Lias (born 1953), Malaysian ...

. * ''Handbuch der Botanik'', four volumes, Breslau, (as an editor, Series: Encyklopaedie der Naturwissenschaften) 1879-1890 - Manual of botany.Biodiversity Heritage Library
Handbuch der Botanik * ''Fossile Pflanzen aus der Albourskette'', (collected by geologist Emil Tietze) 1887 - Fossil plants of the Elburz chain. * ''Die fossilen Pflanzenreste'', Breslau, E. Trewendt, 1888 - Fossilized plant remains.

References

External links

WorldCat Search
(Publications by Schenk). {{DEFAULTSORT:Schenk, August 1815 births 1891 deaths Leipzig University faculty University of Würzburg faculty People from Hallein 19th-century German botanists Paleobotanists