Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn

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Photograph taken in 1860.

Friedrich Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn (born October 26, 1809 in Mansfeld, Germany, died April 24, 1864 in Java), was a German botanist. His father, Friedrich Junghuhn was a barber and a surgeon. His mother was Christine Marie Schiele. Junghuhn studied medicine in Halle and in Berlin from 1827 to 1831, publishing a paper on mushrooms in this time. He became a surgeon in the Prussian army, then a doctor in the French Army in Algeria, but was condemned to serve ten years in prison for his involvement in a duel in which he was wounded. He feigned insanity, and was able to escape. He was briefly a member of the French Foreign Legion, until a friend recommended that he enter the Dutch colonial service as a physician. He did so, leaving Europe in 1834 and arriving in Jakarta (then called "Batavia") in 1835.

Junghuhn later settled in Java, where he made an extensive study of the land and its people. He completed Die Topographischen und Naturwissenschaftlichen Reisen durch Java (Topographic and Scientific Journeys in Java) in 1845 and Die Bättalander auf Sumatra ("Batak lands of Sumatra") in 1847. In 1849, ill health forced his return to Holland, where he got married to Johanna Louisa Frederika Koch on January 23, 1850, and had a son. While in Holland, Junghung began work on a four volume treatise, Java, seine Gestalt, Pflanzendecke, und sein innerer Bau (Images of Light and Shadow from Java's interior) released anonymously between 1850 and 1854. The work was controversial, advocating socialism in the colonies and fiercely criticising Christian and Islamic proselytization of the Javanese people. Junghuhn instead wrote of his preferrence for a form Pandeism (pantheistic deism), contending that God was in everything, but could only be determined through reason. The work was banned in Austria and parts of Germany for its "denigrations and vilifications of Christianity", but was a strong seller in Holland. It was also popular in colonial Indonesia, despite opposition from the Dutch Christian Church there. The publisher of the first volume, Jacobus Hazenberg, refused to continue his association with the work; the remaining four were published by the outspoken liberal, Frans Günst.

Recovered from his ills, Junghuhn returned to Java in 1855, remaining until his death from liver disease. On his deathbed, Junghung asked the doctor to open the windows, so he could say goodbye to the mountains that he loved. A minor item of trivia playing into discussions of Junghuhn is his surname, literally translated as "young chicken".

The plants Cyathea junghuhniana and Nepenthes junghuhnii are named after Franz Junghuhn.