author
Rudolf Schlechter
1872–1925
A tireless German botanist and orchid specialist, he explored widely and helped map the astonishing variety of tropical plant life. His name is especially linked with orchids, a field he studied with remarkable energy and detail.
1 Audiobook
Westafrikanische Kautschuk-Expedition
by Rudolf Schlechter, Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft. Kolonial-Wirtschaftliches Komitee
About the author
Born in Berlin in 1872, Rudolf Schlechter became one of the leading orchid experts of his time. He was a German taxonomist and botanist whose work focused especially on Orchidaceae, and he published extensively on the group.
His career was shaped by travel as much as by scholarship. He took part in botanical expeditions in Africa, Indonesia, New Guinea, South and Central America, and Australia, building knowledge from field collecting as well as close scientific study.
Schlechter died in Berlin in 1925. His reputation has lasted because of the scale of his botanical work and the importance of his studies of orchids, which continued to influence later researchers even after much of his herbarium was lost in Berlin during World War II.