Roland Ernst Beschel (9 August 1928,

Salzburg, Austria Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the ...

– 22 January 1971,

Kingston, Ontario Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located on the north-eastern end of Lake Ontario, at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River (south end of the Rideau Canal). The city is midway between Toro ...

) was an Austrian botanist, lichenologist, professor, and herbarium director, known for his famous doctoral thesis and subsequent research on

lichenometry In archaeology, palaeontology, and geomorphology, lichenometry is a geomorphic method of geochronologic dating that uses lichen growth to determine the age of exposed rock, based on a presumed specific rate of increase in radial size over time.L ...

. Beschel received in 1950 a doctorate in botany and physical geography from the

University of Innsbruck The University of Innsbruck (german: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck; la, Universitas Leopoldino Franciscea) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. ...

, with a pioneering thesis on the ecology and growth of lichens and the use of lichen measurements to give dates for rock surface exposure. He taught at the

Institut auf dem Rosenberg Institut auf dem Rosenberg (registered name: Institut auf dem Rosenberg – The Artisans of Education, often referred to as Rosenberg) is a private, international boarding school located in St. Gallen, Switzerland. Established in 1889, it is one ...

St. Gallen , neighboring_municipalities = Eggersriet, Gaiserwald, Gossau, Herisau (AR), Mörschwil, Speicher (AR), Stein (AR), Teufen (AR), Untereggen, Wittenbach , twintowns = Liberec (Czech Republic) , website ...

, Switzerland, until 1955, and then at

Mount Allison University Mount Allison University (also Mount A or MtA) is a Canadian primarily undergraduate liberal arts university located in Sackville, New Brunswick, founded in 1839. Like other liberal arts colleges in North America, Mount Allison does not parti ...

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

. In 1959 Beschel was appointed an assistant professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and the director of the Fowler Herbarium at Queen's. He was promoted to full professor at Queen's in 1969. The Fowler Herbarium is named after its founder James Fowler, a professor of natural history of Queen's, who retired in 1907 and had no successor as director of the herbarium until the appointment of Beschel in 1959. He was elected a Fellow of the AAAS in 1965. He died suddenly at his home in Kingston at the age of 42. (His successor as director of the Fowler Herbarium was Adele Crowder.)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beschel, Roland Ernst 1928 births 1971 deaths University of Innsbruck alumni Queen's University at Kingston faculty Austrian lichenologists 20th-century Austrian botanists Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science