Alexander Gustav von Schrenk (4 February 1816 – 25 June 1876) was a Russian naturalist born near Tula in what was then the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. He was a brother to

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

Leopold von Schrenck Peter Leopold von Schrenck (russian: Леопольд Иванович фон Шренк; 1826 – 8 January 1894) was a Russian zoologist, geographer and ethnographer. Biography Schrenck came from a Baltic German family, and was born and b ...

(1826–1894). From 1834 to 1837, he studied sciences at the

University of Dorpat The University of Tartu (UT; et, Tartu Ülikool; la, Universitas Tartuensis) is a university in the city of Tartu in Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is the only classical university in the country, and also its biggest ...

(

Tartu Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after the Northern European country's political and financial capital, Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 91,407 (as of 2021). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of ...

), later spending several years as an assistant at the

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 ...

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. He was habilitated for

mineralogy Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the proces ...

at Dorpat, where from 1849 he served as a lecturer. From 1858 he spent the next ten years at his wife's manor in

Pühajärve Pühajärve (german: Heiligensee) is a village in Otepää Parish, Valga County in southern Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf ...

(''Heiligensee''),

Livonia Livonia ( liv, Līvõmō, et, Liivimaa, fi, Liivinmaa, German and Scandinavian languages: ', archaic German: ''Liefland'', nl, Lijfland, Latvian and lt, Livonija, pl, Inflanty, archaic English: ''Livland'', ''Liwlandia''; russian: Ли ...

, returning to Dorpat in 1868, where he died several years later.translated biography
@

Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB, german: Universal German Biography) is one of the most important and comprehensive biographical reference works in the German language. It was published by the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Aca ...

Kaavere, V., 1990. Alexander von Schrenk – geoloog, botaanik, luuletaja. ''Eesti Loodus'', 6: 400–403. Known for his expeditions to

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

and northern Russia, he was the author of ''Reise nach dem Nordosten des europäischen Rußlands, durch die Tundren der Samojeden, zum arktischen Uralgebirge'', a two-volume work involving a journey to the Arctic that was later translated into English. While traveling in the historic region of

Dzhungaria Dzungaria (; from the Mongolian words , meaning 'left hand') is a geographical subregion in Northwest China that corresponds to the northern half of Xinjiang. It is thus also known as Beijiang, which means "Northern Xinjiang". Bounded by the A ...

in Central Asia, he identified numerous new species of plants and insects. Schrenk was co-founder of the ''Dorpater Naturforschergesellschaft'' ( Tartu Naturalists' Society). The species '' Picea schrenkiana'' (Schrenk's spruce), in 1841, and '' Tulipa schrenkii'' (Schrenck's tulip) are named in his honor.''Tulipa schrenkii'', Regel 1873.
/ref> Also in 1841, botanists

Fisch. Friedrich Ernst Ludwig Fischer (20 February 1782, Halberstadt – 17 June 1854) was a Russian botanist, born in Germany. He was director of the St Petersburg botanical garden from 1823 to 1850. In 1804 he obtained his medical doctorate from the ...

and C.A.Mey. published '' Schrenkia'', which is a genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s from Central Asia belonging to the family

Apiaceae Apiaceae or Umbelliferae is a family of mostly aromatic flowering plants named after the type genus ''Apium'' and commonly known as the celery, carrot or parsley family, or simply as umbellifers. It is the 16th-largest family of flowering plants ...

and named in his honour.

Selected works

* ''Bericht über eine im jahre 1840 in die östliche Dsungarische Kirgisensteppe unternommene reise'' - Report on a trip undertaken in the eastern Dzungarian Kirghiz Steppe in the year 1840. * ''Reise nach dem Balchasch und auf dem Tarbagatai'', 1841 - Journey to the Balkhash and the Tarbagatai. * ''Reise nach dem Nordosten des europäischen Rußlands, durch die Tundren der Samojeden, zum arktischen Uralgebirge'', two volumes, 1848; translated into English in 1964 as "Journey to the Northeast of European Russia, through the Tundras of the Samoyeds, to the Arctic Ural Mountains". * ''Orographisch-geognostische Uebersicht des Uralgebirges im hohen Norden'', 1849 -

Orographic Orography is the study of the topographic relief of mountains, and can more broadly include hills, and any part of a region's elevated terrain. Orography (also known as ''oreography'', ''orology'' or ''oreology'') falls within the broader discipl ...

- geognostic overview of the

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...

in the far north. * ''Sitzungsberichte der naturforscher-gesellschaft zu Dorpat in den jahren 1853 bis 1860'' - Proceedings of the Dorpat naturalist society in the years 1853–1860.WorldCat Identities
(publications)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schrenk, Alexander von German naturalists 19th-century German geologists Baltic-German people German mineralogists Estonian explorers German explorers Explorers of Central Asia 1816 births 1876 deaths University of Tartu alumni Academic staff of the University of Tartu

Selected works

See also

References