Heinrich Wilhelm Schott

Heinrich Wilhelm Schott was an Austrian botanist well known for his extensive work on aroids (Family Araceae).

He was born on 7 January 1794 in Brno, a city in Moravia that in those years was part of the Austrian Empire and that now is part of the Czech Republic. As a young boy, he came to live in Vienna, where his father was the chief gardener of the botanical garden of the university.

He studied botany, agriculture and chemistry at the University of Vienna, where he was a student of the botanist Joseph Franz von Jacquin (1766-1839). In 1815 he became gardener at the garden for the Austrian flora at the Belveder palace.

He was a participant in the Austrian Brazil Expedition from 1817 to 1821. While in Brazil from mid-1817 through 1821, Schott established and managed an introduction garden for accustoming living plants to more temperate climates in order to have them brought to Europe at a later date, made field trips, and prepared many notes concerning the plants and animals he saw.

In 1821 Schott returned to Vienna, where he worked as gardener again. In 1828 he was appointed Hofgärtner (Royal Gardener) in Vienna, later serving as director of the Imperial Gardens at Schönbrunn Palace (1845). In 1852 he was in charge of transforming part of palace gardens in the fashion of an English garden. He also enriched the Viennese court gardens with his collections from Brazil.

He was interested in plants that grow in high mountains, above the tree line,These plants are called sometimes as alpine plants because they are common in the high Alps, even if they exist in other high mountains. Alpine plants must resist the difficult conditions of the alpine environment, like low temperatures, dryness, ultraviolet radiation, and a short growing season. He developed a garden with that kind of plants (an alpine garden) at Belvedere in Vienna.

He died at the Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, on 5 March 1865.

 Publications 
 Meletemata botanica (with Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher), 1832
 Rutaceae. Fragmenta botanica, 1834
 Genera filicum, 84 pp. 1834–1836
 Aroideae, 1853-1857
 Analecta botanica (with Theodor Kotschy and Carl Fredrik Nyman), 70 pp. 1854
 Synopsis Aroidearum complectens enumerationem systematicam generum at specierum hujus ordinis, 148 pp. 1856
 Icones Aroidearum, 1857
 Genera Aroidearum Exposita, 1858
 Prodromus Systematis Aroidearum, 1860

Species named for Schott
Other botanists named plants in honour of Schott; some of them are:
 (Acanthaceae) Aphelandra schottiana'''' (Nees) Profice
 (Acanthaceae) Schaueria schottii Nees
 (Agavaceae) Agave schottii Engelm.
 (Apiaceae) Dichoropetalum schottii (Besser ex DC.) Pimenov & Kljuykov
 (Rubiaceae) Uragoga schottiana (Müll.Arg.) Kuntze
 (Trigoniaceae) Trigonia schottiana Turcz.
 (Verbenaceae) Stachytarpheta schottiana'' Schauer

Notes

References

Other websites
 The Botanical Art of Schott's Aroideae Maximilianae by Scott Hyndman 
 Deutsche Biographie Schott, Heinrich Wilhelm (biography).

Category:1794 births
Category:1865 deaths
Category:Austrian botanists
Category:People from Brno