Karl Heinz Rechinger

Prof Karl Heinz Rechinger HFRSE (16 October 1906, Vienna – 30 December 1998) was an Austrian botanist and phytogeographer.

Life

He was born in Vienna on 16 October 1906 the son of Karl Rechinger.

He studied botany, geography and geology at the University of Vienna, and beginning in 1928, worked as a demonstrator under Richard Wettstein in Vienna's institute of botany.[1] He was for almost 35 years the Director of the Department of Botany at the Natural History Museum in Vienna, where from 1961 to 1971, he was the museum's Director.

He made important contributions involving flora native to Southwestern Asia and Greece, being recognized for his work on Flora Iranica and as the author of Flora Aegaea.[2] As a taxonomist, he described many species of plants.[3]

Rechinger was also a lecturer of botany at the University of Vienna, and in 1956–57 was a visiting professor in Baghdad, where he founded a herbarium.[2][4] He was in 1971 elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

He retired in 1971. He went deaf in old age.

He died on 30 December 1998.

Publications
  • Flora Aegaea (1944)
  • Flora of Lower Iraq (1967)
  • Flora Iranica (1998)

Family

He married twice, having two children by his first wife Frida then marrying Wilhelmina.

Eponymy

The lichen genus Rechingeria, the fungi genus Rechingeriella, the plant taxa Androcymbium rechingeri, Carthamus rechingeri, Centaurea rechingeri, Erysimum rechingeri, Campanula rechingeri, Paronychia rechingeri, Euphorbia rechingeri, Onosma kaheirei, Trifolium rechingeri, Stipa rechingeri, Trisetum rechingeri and the Land snail Albinaria rechingeri are named in his honor.[1] He also collected reptiles on his journeys, including two species and one subspecies that were named after him; Elaphe rechingeri (now treated as synonym of Elaphe quatuorlineata), Eirenis rechingeri and Podacris erhardii rechingeri.[2][4]

References
  1. Biodiversity Heritage Library Taxonomic literature : a selective guide to botanical publications
  2. JSTOR Global Plants biography
  3. IPNI List of plants described and co-described by Karl Heinz Rechinger
  4. The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles by Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins, Michael Grayson
  5. IPNI.  Rech.f.


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