Eduard Von Regel

Abstract

THE learned and genial Director of the St. Petersburg Botanic Garden, Dr. Eduard von Regel, died on April 27, in his seventy-seventh year. He was the son of a Gotha parson, and developed a taste for gardening while still quite young. During the hours that might have been given to play he was usually engaged at his favourite pursuit in his father's garden. After the usual course of education, he spent several years in various botanic gardens, and about 1842 he was appointed “Obergärtner” in the Botanic Garden at Zurich. Here, in conjunction with Dr. O. Heer, the celebrated palæontologist, one of whose daughters he subsequently married, he at once founded a Swiss journal for agriculture and horticulture, and was exceedingly active in promoting horticulture, both in writing and practically. In 1852 he founded the now well-known and still flourishing Gartenflora, which, however, he ceased to edit after 1885. He soon gained fame, and when the important post of Scientific Director of the St. Petersburg Botanic Garden became vacant in 1855, it was offered to and accepted by Regel, and held by him to the last. There he found a wide field for his energy and abilities: but although he accomplished much meritorious botanical work, Russia is far more indebted to him for the improvements he effected in horticulture generally than for his botany. At the time when he first went to St. Petersburg, gardening was at a very low ebb, and the vast strides that have since been made in this industry are very largely due to his untiring efforts. He wrote treatises, introduced superior varieties of fruits, vegetables, and flowers, and succeeded in gaining the influence and support of exalted persons for his projects both botanical and horticultural. It was mainly through his exertions, we believe, that the first flower-show was held in St. Petersburg. This was in 1858, and now such a thing is no uncommon event. He was also instrumental in getting botanists attached to the Russian exploring expeditions in Central and Eastern Asia, whereby the gardens and herbaria, not only of Russia, but of Europe, have been greatly enriched, and botanical science advanced. Regel himself elaborated many of the dried collections thus obtained, besides describing a large number of plants cultivated in the garden from seeds or bulbs sent thither by various travellers. One of the best of his numerous writings is a monograph of the genus Allium—“Alliorum adhuc cognitorum Monographia,”—the number of species described exceeding 250, including a large number previously undescribed, the fruits of the explorations in Asia. He was also joint author of an enumeration of the plants collected in Siberia by Semenoff, Radde, Stubendorff, and others. Although gradually declining in health during the last year or so, he continued to discharge the duties of his office; and although not so active with his pen as formerly, he contributed some descriptions of new plants to the Gartenflora as recently as February of the present year. Dr. Regel was the recipient of many honours in his adopted country, and he was elected a foreign member of the Linnean Society of London in 1890. This is the second of her few prominent botanists that Russia has lost within a year.