Theophil Joachim Heinrich Bienert (3 May 1833 – 5 April 1873) was a Baltic German botanist who lived and worked mainly in

Imperial Russia The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, 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 th ...

Life and work

Theophil Joachim Heinrich Bienert was born in Kandava, in the

Courland Governorate The Courland Governorate, also known as the Province of Courland, Governorate of Kurland (german: Kurländisches Gouvernement; russian: Курля́ндская губерния, translit=Kurljándskaja gubernija; lv, Kurzemes guberņa; lt, K ...

of the Russian Empire (present-day

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

), and studied in Jelgava to become an apothecary. In 1858 he moved to

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 ...

in present-day Estonia and worked there as an assistant to the head of the Botanical Garden there. In 1858-59 he participated in the

Russian Geographical Society The Russian Geographical Society (russian: Ру́сское географи́ческое о́бщество «РГО»), or RGO, is a learned society based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It promotes geography, exploration and nature protection wi ...

's scientific expedition to

Khorasan Khorasan may refer to: * Greater Khorasan, a historical region which lies mostly in modern-day northern/northwestern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan * Khorasan Province, a pre-2004 province of Ira ...

. He then stayed in Tartu until 1872, when he moved to

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

and took up a position at Riga Technical University. The genus ''Bienertia'' is named in honour of him by Alexander Bunge.

Selected writings

''Baltische Flora, enthaltend die in Esth-, Liv- u. Kurland wildwachsenden Samenpflanzen u. höheren Sporenpflanzen''
(1872)

References

1833 births 1873 deaths People from Kandava People from Courland Governorate Baltic-German people Academic staff of Riga Technical University 19th-century botanists from the Russian Empire {{botanist-stub