Camillo Karl Schneider (7 April 1876 – 5 January 1951) was a German botanist and landscape architect. A farmer's son, he was born at Gröppendorf, in the

Kingdom of Saxony The Kingdom of Saxony (german: Königreich Sachsen), lasting from 1806 to 1918, was an independent member of a number of historical confederacies in Napoleonic through post-Napoleonic Germany. The kingdom was formed from the Electorate of Saxon ...

, and worked as a gardener at

Zeitz Zeitz ( hsb, Žič) is a town in the Burgenlandkreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the river White Elster, in the triangle of the federal states Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Saxony. History Zeitz was first recorded u ...

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

and

Greifswald Greifswald (), officially the University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald (german: Universitäts- und Hansestadt Greifswald, Low German: ''Griepswoold'') is the fourth-largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rostoc ...

. Returning to Berlin to work in the City Parks Department, he assisted in editorial work for the periodical ''Gartenwelt'', which led to his employ as a landscape assistant in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

and Berlin. In 1900, he moved to

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

, where he practiced as a freelance architect and writer, travelling extensively through Europe. In 1904 he published his first books, including the beginning of his tome ''Illustrated Handbook of Broad-leaved Trees'', which he completed in 1912. However, the manuscript of what should have been his ''

magnum opus A masterpiece, ''magnum opus'' (), or ''chef-d’œuvre'' (; ; ) in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, ...

'', a study of the genus ''

Berberis ''Berberis'' (), commonly known as barberry, is a large genus of deciduous and evergreen shrubs from tall, found throughout temperate and subtropical regions of the world (apart from Australia). Species diversity is greatest in South Amer ...

'', was destroyed in a bombing raid on Berlin in 1943. In 1913, supported by the Austro-Hungarian Dendrological Society, he ventured to China to collect plants and seeds for the botanical garden at Pruhonitz. He left China via

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

in 1915, travelling to

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

where he worked at the

Arnold Arboretum The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is a botanical research institution and free public park, located in the Jamaica Plain and Roslindale neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1872, it is the oldest public arboretum in N ...

alongside Sargent,

Rehder Rehder is a German surname. Notable people with this surname include the following: * Alfred Rehder (1863–1949), German-American botanist and Harvard professor * Elke Rehder (born 1953), German artist * Harald Alfred Rehder (1907–1996), Ameri ...

and Wilson until 1919, when he returned to Vienna. Two years later, he moved to Berlin to work on the new periodical ''Gartenschönheit'', which survived until 1942. On its demise, he worked for its successor, ''Gartenbau im Reich'', although he also continued to practice as a landscape architect, redesigning gardens and parks in the new reich. Impoverished by the consequences of the war, he was obliged to continue working in old age; Schneider's last book ''Hecken im Garten'' (''Hedges in the Garden'') was published in 1950, the year before his death in Berlin. His brother was Karl Camillo Schneider (born 28 August 1867 in

Pomßen Pomßen is a village some 20 kilometres from Leipzig, Germany. Since 1994, it is part of the municipality of Parthenstein. There is a fortified church of architectural and historical interest. It has an organ built by Gottfried Richter (1643–171 ...

, Germany; † March 1943 in

Oleśnica Oleśnica (pronounced ; german: Oels; szl, Ôleśnica) is a town in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland, within the Wrocław metropolitan area. It is the administrative seat of Oleśnica County and also of the rural district of ...

, Poland), who was a German-Austrian zoologist, philosopher, writer, parapsychologist and painter. He was in correspondence with

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

.Albert Einstein: The collected papers of Albert Einstein . Ed .: Joh J. Stachel et al. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, NJ 1987, pp. 496, 676

Works

* Schneider, C. K. 1905. ''Illustriertes Handbuch der Laubholzkunde. Charakteristik der in Mitteleuropa heimischen im Freien angepflanzten angiospermen Gehölz-Arten und Formen mit Ausschluss der Bambuseen und Kakteen''. Verlag von Gustav Fischer, Jena. Volume 1, pp 493–494 https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/5886 * Schneider, C. K. 1905.
Die Gattung "Berberis". Vorarbeiten für eine Monographie.
' // Bull.Herb.Boissier.Sér.2. Genève. Vol. v. p. 33 sq

References

*Stearn, W. T. (1951). ''Gardeners Chronicle'', 1951, 129, 32. 1876 births 1951 deaths People from Wermsdorf People from the Kingdom of Saxony 20th-century German botanists German landscape architects Botanists active in China Botanists with author abbreviations Arnold Arboretum {{Germany-botanist-stub