Wilhelm Nikolaus Suksdorf
| Wilhelm Nikolaus Suksdorf | |
|---|---|
Suksdorf, circa 1900
|
|
| Born |
September 15, 1850 Dransau, Germany |
| Died | October 3, 1932 (aged 82) Bingen, Washington |
| Nationality | German-American |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Botany |
| Influences | Asa Gray |
Wilhelm Nikolaus Suksdorf (September 15, 1850 – October 3, 1932) was a German–American botanist, who specialized in the flora of the Pacific Northwest. He was largely self-taught and is considered one of the top three self-taught botanists of his era for the Pacific Northwest; the other two being Thomas Jefferson Howell and William Conklin Cusick.
Suksdorf was born on September 15, 1850 in a small village named Dransau, along the eastern border of Schleswig, but it is often listed as the nearby large city of Kiel, Germany. His parents were Detlev Suksdorf, a tenant farmer, and Louise Schröder Suksdorf, who had nine children. Two of these children were girls who died young. The seven boys all lived well into adulthood. Suksdorf was the 6th child and 2nd-youngest son.
When he was eight, his family moved to Davenport, Iowa, in the east central part of the state, where he lived until 1874. Suksdorf's father rented a farm there in a predominantly German community. After a few years, Suksdorf's father bought 100 acres of unbroken prairie, where the family lived for 10 years. Neither of his parents learned English and all the children worked on the farm in a very conservative environment.
Suksdorf often had headaches as a child and was cured by a doctor in Davenport via a treatment he never revealed because he had promised the doctor not to do so. He showed an interest in botany and flower collecting as a youth. Two of his brothers took botany classes at Iowa State University and Suksdorf watched them prepare specimens. In 1870-1871 he bought a copy of Asa Gray's Manual of Botany.
Suksdorf attended both public schools in Davenport and private German schools. He also took some classes at Griswold College and Grinnell College. About 1874 two of his elder brothers left home and found work on a ranch close to the Columbia River. The rest of the family was so impressed by their reports that the whole family moved there. From 1874 to 1876 Suksdorf began studying agriculture at the University of California, Berkeley but then left, apparently because of finances, shyness, health, and because his German was better than his English. While there he only took one botany course which included no laboratory work. He heard a guest lecture by Albert Kellogg while at Berkeley which further piqued his botanical interests. He never graduated from college but did take some coursework at Harvard University and Washington State University.
...
Wikipedia