Abstract
The Reuss herbarium is a collection of c. 60 000 vascular plants of mainly European origin brought together in the mid-nineteenth century and kept in the Botanical Museum Berlin. This herbarium consists of specimens gathered by August Emanuel Reuss and his two sons August Leopold and Wilhelm Joseph and includes ample material purchased from different sources, notably the exchange club “Botanischer Tauschverein” in Vienna, and various exsiccata series. The collection also contains the voucher material referring to August Leopold Reuss's publications on the flora of what is now the north of the Czech Republic, the eastern fringe of Austria, the most western part of Croatia and the surroundings of Trieste in Italy. A considerable proportion of the Reuss herbarium originates from gardens, both botanic and private, in Prague, Vienna and elsewhere, and documents in certain cases their long-lost inventories. The complex background of the Reuss herbarium and its acquisition are elucidated, brief biographies of the key figures of the Reuss family with emphasis on their botanical activities are provided, and the names of the main collectors represented in the herbarium are listed.
Highlights
During the night of 1 – 2 March 1943, the herbarium wing of the Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem was hit by bombs, among them phosphorus canisters, setting its contents on fire and reducing them to ash (Pilger 1953)
Heinz Rechinger (1906 – 1998), the acting head of the Department of Botany (Lack 2000), sent a letter dated 10 May 1944 to an unknown recipient in Berlin (Unpublished sources 2). In this document he announced the sending of fourteen boxes of herbarium material to the Kali mine in Bleicherode in Thuringia, Germany, one of the evacuation sites of the Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem
This paper continues earlier contributions on the herbaria sent from the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna to the Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem in 1944 (Lack 1980; Lack & Wagner 1985)
Summary
During the night of 1 – 2 March 1943, the herbarium wing of the Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem was hit by bombs, among them phosphorus canisters, setting its contents on fire and reducing them to ash (Pilger 1953). Heinz Rechinger (1906 – 1998), the acting head of the Department of Botany (Lack 2000), sent a letter dated 10 May 1944 to an unknown recipient in Berlin (Unpublished sources 2) In this document he announced the sending of fourteen boxes of herbarium material to the Kali mine in Bleicherode in Thuringia, Germany, one of the evacuation sites of the Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem. These boxes, labelled BM 102 – 116, contained a miscellany of herbaria intended as gifts to help rebuild the collections (Unpublished sources 2) and they survived through to the end of the Second World War in safe storage. This paper continues earlier contributions on the herbaria sent from the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna to the Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem in 1944 (Lack 1980; Lack & Wagner 1985)
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