Franz Xaver von Wulfen

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Baron Franz Xaver von Wulfen (born 5 November 1728 in Belgrade; died 16 March 1805 in Klagenfurt) was a botanist, mineralogist, alpinist, and Jesuit priest. He is credited with discovering Wulfenia carinthiaca and Wulfenite, a form of lead.

His father, Christian Friedrich von Wulfen, was a high-ranking lieutenant in the Austrian Army. Franz's education took place at Kaschau Gymnasium in present-day Košice, Slovakia. When he was 17, he joined a Jesuit school in Vienna and following his graduation he became a school instructor (chiefly of mathematics and physics) in Vienna, Graz, Neusohl, Gorz, Laibach, and (from 1764) Klagenfurt. After the Suppression of the Society of Jesus in the 1760s he remained in Klagenfurt until his death. By 1763 he was officially a priest.

From his twenty-second year he devoted himself to botany. The upland and valley flora of the Eastern Alps was his chief study. To find specimens, Wulfen frequently hiked up the Großglockner and was a pioneer in exploring the Austrian Alps. In 1781, he published his studies in the well-illustrated Plantae rariorum Carinthicae (Rare Plants of Carinthia). He made numerous trips to the south (on many occasions to the Adriatic Sea) and to the north as far as Holland.

A monument in Klagenfurt, erected in 1838, honors him, describing him as "equally great as priest, scholar and man". The genus Wulfenia was named in his honor by Nicholas Jacquin.

[edit] Works

Plantae rariores carinthiacae. V: Miscellanea austriaca ad botanicam, chemiam et historiam naturalem spectantia, vol. I (1778) str. 147-163 in vol. II (1781) str. 25-183
Abhandlung vom Kärntner Bleispate, 1785
Plantae rariores carinthiacae. V: Collectanea ad botanicam, chemiam et historiam naturalem, vol. I (1786) str. 186-364, vol. II (1788) str. 112-234, vol. III (1789) str. 3-166, vol. IV (1790) str. 227-348
Descriptiones Quorumdam Capensium Insectorum, 1786
Plantae rariores descriptae, 1803
Cryptogama aquatica, 1803
Flora Norica phanerogama, 1858 (published posthumously like much of his work)