Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber

Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber was born in 1739 in Weissensee (Thuringia, Germany). He studied medicine, natural sciences, and theology at Halle (Germany) and Uppsala (Sweden) – there under Carl von Linné –, took his M. D. degree in Uppsala in 1760, and then worked as a practicing physician at Bützow (Mecklenburg, Germany). After studying botany in Berlin (mainly with J. G. Gleditsch in 1763), J. C. D. von Schreber in 1769 became professor of medicine and botany at Erlangen and later also director of the Erlangen botanical garden. Schreber was the editor of the 8th edition of Linné ‘s Genera Plantarum (1789–1791) and was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1787, and knighted in 1791. He died in Erlangen in 1810.

In 1813, the Bavarian king bought Schreber’s herbarium to start the ‘Herbarium Regium Monacense’, today’s Botanische Staatssammlung München (M). It contained mainly vascular plants that J. C. D. von Schreber had collected around Uppsala, Leipzig, and Erlangen, as well as specimens he had received in exchange from such important collectors as J. R. Forster and G. Forster (e.g. Australia, Pacific Islands), O. P. Swartz (West Indies), and C. P. P. Thunberg (South Africa). Schreber had also bought the herbarium of his predecessor in Erlangen, C. C. Schmiedel, which included collections made by J. Burman and N. L. Burman (both South Africa, Ceylon). There are only few bryophytes and lichens represented among Schrebers’ material. For details see Hertel & Schreiber 1988 (online version, extended). Because of Schreber’s connections with Carl von Linné, the Botanische Staatssammlung München has a few Linnean specimens.