Karl Friedrich Schimper (15 February 1803 – 21 December 1867) 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 ...

, naturalist and poet.

Life

Early life and education

Schimper was born in Mannheim, on February 15, 1803, to Friedrich Ludwig Heinrich Schimper and Margaretha Kathar. Jakob. Wilh. V. Furtenbach. He was a theology student at Heidelberg University and taught at Munich University.

Career

Schimper pioneered research in the field of plant morphology, particularly phyllotaxis. He is perhaps best known as the originator of the theory of

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

hot and cold eras, and was one of the initiators of the modern theories of ice ages and climatic cycles. He was a brother of botanist

Georg Wilhelm Schimper Georg Heinrich Wilhelm Schimper in Amharic sources known as Sambar (2 August 1804 – October 1878) was a renowned German botanist and naturalist, who spent more than forty years in Ethiopia collecting specimens of plants, mainly in Semien, ...

and cousin of botanist

Wilhelm Philippe Schimper Wilhelm Philippe Schimper (January 12, 1808 – March 20, 1880, in Lichtenberg) was an Alsatian botanist with French, later German citizenship. He was born in Dossenheim-sur-Zinsel, but spent his youth in Offwiller, a village at the foot of the ...

. Bill Bryson states in his book '' A Short History of Nearly Everything'' that Karl Schimper originated the idea of glaciation and proposed the radical idea that ice sheets had once covered much of Europe, Asia, and North America. However, Schimper was known to be reluctant to write and never published his ideas. He discussed them with

Louis Agassiz Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history. Spending his early life in Switzerland, he rec ...

, who went on to appropriate the idea as his own and, much to Schimper's dismay, undeservedly received much of the credit for its origination.E.P. Evans: ''The Authorship of the Glacial Theory'', North American review. / Volume 145, Issue 368, July 1887
. Accessed on February 25, 2008.

Death

Schimper died on December 21, 1867, in

Schwetzingen Schwetzingen (; pfl, Schwetzinge) is a German town in northwest Baden-Württemberg, around southwest of Heidelberg and southeast of Mannheim. Schwetzingen is one of the five biggest cities of the Rhein-Neckar-Kreis district and a medium-sized ...

Works

* ''Beschreibung des Symphytum Zeyheri und seiner zwei deutschen verwandten der S. bulbosum Schimper und S. tuberosum Jacq : mit 6 Steintaf.'' . Winter, Heidelberg 183
Digital edition
by the

University and State Library Düsseldorf The University and State Library Düsseldorf (german: Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Düsseldorf, abbreviated ULB Düsseldorf) is a central service institution of Heinrich Heine University. Along with Bonn and Münster, it is also one of th ...

References

1803 births 1867 deaths Scientists from Mannheim 19th-century German botanists German naturalists People from the Grand Duchy of Baden Heidelberg University alumni Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich faculty German male poets Writers from Mannheim Members of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina German bryologists {{Germany-poet-stub