J. D. C. Pfund, a botanist in the Sudan with the Egyptian Military Expeditions, 1875-6

Abstract

From 1962-5 I was engaged on vegetation survey work in the two central Sudan provinces of Kordofan and Darfur and as a result became interested in the history of botanical collecting in the region. It soon became apparent that this was an area visited little and late by botanists. The great collector and botanist Theodor Kotschy was in Kordofan in 1837 and again in 1839-40 (Tothill, I942), but the first collections known from Darfur date from the Egyptian Military Expeditions of exploration and survey carried out in 1875-6. These were made largely by a certain 'Dr. Pfund', naturalist to the expeditions, of whom no complete biography exists but of whom a fairly complete picture may be assembled from the writings of Maiwald (1904), and Douin (194I). In addition, although Pfund's scientific notebooks cannot now be traced, he left a fairly extensive account of his travels in the form of letters to his wife Ida, and friends in Cairo, the German Consul Herr Travers and Herr A. Kaiser. These were published, without comment or editing by Friederichsen (1878). Though largely of a domestic and episodic nature they include occasional observations on the nature of the terrain and vegetation as well as inexplicably, exact obervations on the depth and temperature of the water in the wells, of little interest, one would have thought, to his wife and friends. It seemed worthwhile to assemble what is known about this pioneer Darfur botanist because, for historical reasons explained later, his records and collections remained the only source of knowledge of plants of the area for half a century. I have drawn largely on Hill (1967) for information about other characters mentioned by Pfund in his letters.