Paul Geipel’s palaeobotanical collection – one of the largest and most important former private collections of the Petrified Forest of Chemnitz

Abstract

Recently, the forgotten fossil wood collection of Dresden’s pathologist and patron Paul Geipel was rediscovered. Today, the collection is stored at the Museum and Art Collections Schloss Hinterglauchau, Germany, as part of the Prof. Dr. Paul Geipel Foundation. The collection may be one of the largest and most important former private collections of the Chemnitz Fossil Lagerstätte. The well-preserved specimens include major fossil-genera of the tree-shaped plants from the central European early Permian and several specimens from other sites. In addition, this investigation provided an insight into a historical period of collection research at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as onto an international network of collectors, such as Max Güldner, Richard Baldauf and Adolf Theodor Zacharias, and scientific writers, such as the palaeobotanist Karl Rudolph, the mineralogist Richard Beck and the geologist Leo Wehrli.