Adelbert von Chamisso Adelbert von Chamisso ( 30 January 1781 – 21 August 1838 ) was a German poet and botanist . Life . He was born " Louis Charles Adélaïde de Chamissot " at the " château " of Boncourt at Ante , in Champagne , France , the ancestral seat of his family . His name appears in several forms , one of the most common being " Ludolf Karl Adelbert von Chamisso . " Driven out by the French Revolution , his parents settled in Berlin , where in 1796 young Chamisso obtained the post of page - in - waiting to the queen , and in 1798 entered a Prussia n infantry regiment as ensign . Shortly thereafter , upon the Peace of Tilsit , his family was permitted to return to France ; he remained in Germany and continued his military career . He had little education , and while in the Prussia n military service in Berlin assiduously studied natural science for three years . In collaboration with Varnhagen von Ense , he founded ( 1803 ) the " Berliner Musenalmanach " , in which his first verses appeared . The enterprise was a failure , and , interrupted by the war , it came to an end in 1806 . It brought him , however , to the notice of many of the literary celebrities of the day and established his reputation as a rising poet . He had become lieutenant in 1801 , and in 1805 accompanied his regiment to Hameln , where he shared in the humiliation of its treasonable capitulation in the following year . Placed on parole , he went to France , but both his parents were dead ; returning to Berlin in the autumn of 1807 , he obtained his release from the service early the following year . Homeless and without a profession , disillusioned and despondent , he lived in Berlin until 1810 , when , through the services of an old friend of the family , he was offered a professorship at the " lycée " at Napoléonville in the Vendée . He set out to take up the post , but instead joined the circle of Madame de Staël , and followed her in her exile to Coppet in Switzerland , where , devoting himself to botanical research , he remained nearly two years . In 1812 he returned to Berlin , where he continued his scientific studies . In the summer of the eventful year , 1813 , he wrote the prose narrative " Peter Schlemihl " , the man who sold his shadow . This , the most famous of all his works , has been translated into most European languages ( English by William Howitt ) . It was written partly to divert his own thoughts and partly to amuse the children of his friend Julius Eduard Hitzig . In 1815 , Chamisso was appointed botanist to the Russia n ship " Rurik " , fitted out at the expense of Count Nikolay Rumyantsev , which Otto von Kotzebue ( son of August von Kotzebue ) commanded on a scientific voyage round the world . He collected at the Cape of Good Hope in January 1818 in the company of Krebs , Mund and Maire . His diary of the expedition ( " Tagebuch " , 1821 ) is a fascinating account of the expedition to the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea . During this trip Chamisso described a number of new species found in what is now the San Francisco Bay Area . Several of these , including the California poppy , " Eschscholzia californica " , were named after his friend Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz , the Rurik ' s entomologist . In return , Eschscholtz named a variety of plants , including the genus " Camissonia " , after Chamisso . On his return in 1818 he was made custodian of the botanical gardens in Berlin , and was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences , and in 1819 he married his friend Hitzig ' s foster daughter Antonie Piaste ( 1800 – 1837 ) . In 1827 , partly for the purpose of rebutting the charges brought against him by Kotzebue , he published " Views and Remarks on a Voyage of Discovery " , and " Description of a Voyage Round the World " . Both works display great accuracy and industry . His last scientific labor was a tract on the " Language of Owyhee " . Chamisso ' s travels and scientific researches restrained for a while the full development of his poetical talent , and it was not until his forty - eighth year that he turned back to literature . In 1829 , in collaboration with Gustav Schwab , and from 1832 in conjunction with Franz von Gaudy , he brought out the " Deutscher Musenalmanach " , in which his later poems were mainly published . He died in Berlin at the age of 57 . His grave is preserved in the Protestant " Friedhof III der Jerusalems - und Neuen Kirchengemeinde " ( Cemetery No . III of the congregations of Jerusalem ' s Church and New Church ) in Berlin - Kreuzberg , south of Hallesches Tor . Botanical work . Chamisso will be remembered for his work as a botanist ; his most important work , done in conjunction with Diederich Franz Leonhard von Schlechtendal , was the description of many of the most important trees of Mexico in 1830 - 1831 . Also , his " Bemerkungen und Ansichten " , published in an incomplete form in von Kotzebue ' s " Entdeckungsreise " ( Weimar , 1821 ) and more completely in Chamisso ' s " Gesammelte Werke " ( 1836 ) , and the botanical work , " Übersicht der nutzbarsten und schädlichsten Gewächse in Norddeutschland " ( View of the Most Useful and the Most Noxious Plants of North Germany , with Remarks on Scientific Botany , 1829 ) are esteemed for their careful treatment of their subjects . The genera " Chamissoa " Kunth ( Amaranthaceae ) and " Camissonia " Link ( Onagraceae ) and many species were named in his honor . This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Cham . when citing a botanical name . Belles lettres . Chamisso ' s earliest writings , which include a verse translation of the tragedy " Le Comte de Comminge " in which " heilsam " is used in place of " heilig " , show a 20 year old still struggling to master his new language , and a number of his early poems are in French . Between 1801 and 1804 he became closely associated with other writers and edited their journal . As a poet Chamisso ' s reputation stands high . " Frauenliebe und - leben " ( 1830 ) , a cycle of lyrical poems set to music by Robert Schumann , by Carl Loewe , and by Franz Paul Lachner , is particularly famous . Also noteworthy are " Schloss Boncourt " and " Salas y Gomez " . He often deals with gloomy or repulsive subjects ; and even in his lighter and gayer productions there is an undertone of sadness or of satire . In the lyrical expression of the domestic emotions he displays a fine felicity , and he knew how to treat with true feeling a tale of love or vengeance . " Die Löwenbraut " may be taken as a sample of his weird and powerful simplicity ; and " Vergeltung " is remarkable for a pitiless precision of treatment . The first collected edition of Chamisso ' s works was edited by Hitzig and published in six volumes in 1836 .