Julius von Flotow

Julius von Flotow

Julius von Flotow; full name- Julius Christian Gottlieb Ulrich Gustav Georg Adam Ernst Friedrich von Flotow (March 9, 1788- August 15, 1856) was a German military officer and a botanist specialized in lichenology and bryology.

Von Flotow was born in the village of Pitzerwitz (Pstrowice in Polish) in the region of Neumark. In 1813, he suffered a serious war injury at the Battle of Lützen, from which he never fully recovered and which led to a partial paralysis of his right arm. During a military campaign in France (1819), he took the opportunity to study lichens native to the Ardennes Mountains.^[1] In 1832 he took an early retirement from the military and worked as a private scholar in Hirschberg. Among his written works are the following:

• Reisebericht über eine Excursion nach einem Theile des südöstlichen Riesengebirges (1836)
• Über Haematococcus Pluvialis (1844)
• Lichenes Florae Silesiae (1849-1850)

Von Flotow was a member of several learned societies, notably the Leopoldina and the Senckenberg Nature Research Society. He was a recipient of the Iron Cross and was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Breslau in 1856, a week before his death. The genus Flotovia from the botanical family Asteraceae is named in his honor.

References

• University of Gottingen, Search the Index Collectorum
• translated biography @ Brockhaus Encyclopedic Dictionary