Charles Schäffer (February 4, 1838 – November 23, 1903) was an American physician and botanist from

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, Pennsylvania. His father, Charles Schäffer, was a wholesale druggist and his mother was Priscilla Morgan, daughter of Stacey K. Potts, an old Philadelphia merchant. His early education was received from a private tutor, who prepared him for the

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where he graduated in medicine in 1859. He served in the Chester Military Hospital in 1863 and was

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at the Mission Hospital and Dispensary from 1874 until its close in 1880. He became interested in the flora of Philadelphia and vicinity and later extended his collecting trips to the

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of British Columbia amassing a collection of photographs and plants of that region. In 1862, Schäffer married Martha Potts; she died in 1878. In 1882, he married Ellen Zook; she died in 1884. In 1890, he married Mary Townsend Sharples, who was his companion on his explorations and was deeply interested in his scientific work.SCHAFFER, Charles
in ''

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'' (1901-02 edition), via

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Under his guidance, Sharples reproduced the rarer plants in watercolor and photography; these were published after Schäffer's death, the illustrations being Mrs. Schäffer's and the letter-press that of the botanist Stewardson Brown under the title ''Alpine Flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains'' (1907), published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. Schäffer was a Fellow of the

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, and of the

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, and was a member of the

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, the

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, the

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, the

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, and the

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schaffer, Charles 1838 births 1903 deaths Physicians from Philadelphia 19th-century American botanists Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania alumni Fellows of the Geological Society of America Members of the American Philosophical Society