AnalysisAustralasiaEuropeGeneralHistoricalNatureScience, Technology and Innovation

Friday essay: the forgotten German botanist who took 200,000 Australian plants to Europe

It is not widely known that many Australian colonial natural history collections are represented in German museums and herbaria, nor that there are initiatives to transform these artefacts of colonial heritage and science back into objects from living cultures with living custodians and their own stories to tell.

Dr Johann August Ludwig Preiss (1811–1883) played a significant role in this evolving story as the first professional botanist to collect systematically in the Colony of Western Australia from 1838 to 1842.

  • Anna Haebich
  • The Conversation

His collections of flora and fauna were pivotal in…

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