Erna Walter (11 August 1893 in Bonn – 2 January 1992) was a German

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

ecologist Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

, botanical collector and bryologist.

Life and work

The daughter of botanist

Heinrich Schenck Johann Heinrich Rudolf Schenck (31 January 1860 – 25 June 1927) was a German botanist who was a native of Siegen. He was a brother to geographer Adolf Schenck (1857–1936). Heinrich Schenck initially studied natural sciences at the University ...

, Erna studied botany, physics and chemistry in Darmstadt and Heidelberg. She received her doctorate in 1918 under the direction of botanist Georg Albrecht Klebs at the

University of Heidelberg } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

. Her dissertation was titled: ''Bacteriocine von Clostridium perfringens.'' Rhizocarpon geographicum on quartz

Walter then worked as a scientific assistant at the Botanical Institute of the University of Heidelberg with

Ludwig Jost Ludwig Jost ForMemRS (born November 13, 1865 in Karlsruhe – February 22, 1947 in Heidelberg) was a German botanist, and university professor. Life and work After attending the gymnasium in Karlsruhe, Jost studied natural sciences at the U ...

and as an intern at the Biological Reich Institute in Berlin-Dahlem. She was also an assistant at the Klein Wanzleben sugar factory and at the Oppenheim am Rhein wine school. In 1924, Walter married geobotanist

Heinrich Walter Heinrich Karl Walter (21 October 1898 – 15 October 1989) was a German-Russian botanist and eco-physiologist. Life Walter, the son of a doctor, was born in Odessa. He studied plant biology at the University of Odessa from 1915 to 1917. In 1918 h ...

. With him, she undertook numerous research trips to different vegetation zones, during which she concerned herself in particular to

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.moss Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hor ...

es. The couple endeavored to "personally investigate each floral kingdom and climatic zone in the world to obtain comparative material on a global scale."Walter, H. (2012). ''Vegetation of the earth and ecological systems of the geo-biosphere''. Springer Science & Business Media. She played an important role in her husband's research and he credited her for that in print.Walter, H., & Burnett, J. H. (1971). ''Ecology of tropical and subtropical vegetation'' (Vol. 539). Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd. In addition to her husband, Walter's co-collectors included Kamil Karamanoglu (1920-1976), Charles Killian (1887-1957) and R.P. Maire (fl. 1921). She is credited with 584 specimens collected from at least 16 countries. Walter's plant finds are kept in the Munich Herbarium and include, among others, mosses and lichens from Argentina, Australia, Chile, Germany, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia, Canada, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Austria, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, from the British Isles and Venezuela.

Selected publications

Erna contributed to many of her husband's publications and he mentions her sizeable contributions in some of them, although she was not named a co-author in others. * Walter, E. (1918). ''Bacteriocine von Clostridium perfringens'' * Walter, H., & Walter, E. (1929). Ökologische Untersuchungen des osmotischen Wertes bei Pflanzen aus der Umgebung des Balatons (Plattensees) in Ungarn während der Dürrezeit 1928. ''Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Biologie. Abteilung E: Planta'', 571-624. * Walter, H., & Walter, E. (1953). Das Gesetz der relativen Standortskonstanz: Das Wesen der Pflanzengesellschaften. ''Ber. Dtsch. bot. Ges'', ''66'', 228-236.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walter, Erna 20th-century German botanists 20th-century German women scientists Botanists active in Europe German phytogeographers Heidelberg University alumni People from Bonn 1893 births 1992 deaths