16 Facts About Ferdinand Lindheimer

Ferdinand Jacob Lindheimer was a German Texan botanist who spent his working life on the American frontier.

Ferdinand Jacob Lindheimer was born to merchant Johann Hartmann and Jahnette Magdeline Reisser Lindheimer on May 21,1801, in Frankfurt, Germany.

Ferdinand Lindheimer was educated at the Frankfurt Gymnasium, a Berlin preparatory school, the University of Wiesbaden and the University of Jena.

Ferdinand Lindheimer received a scholarship in Philology at the University of Bonn.

In 1827 Ferdinand Lindheimer became a teacher at the Bunsen Institute in Frankfurt, where he became an active proponent of governmental reform of Germany.

Ferdinand Lindheimer became one of the Dreissiger refugees who left Germany after participation in the failed Frankfurt Putsch insurrection in 1833.

In 1834, Ferdinand Lindheimer arrived in Belleville, Illinois, whence he traveled by boat to New Orleans.

Ferdinand Lindheimer spent over a year here with the German migrants in Mexico learning as much about the bountiful Mexican flora.

Ferdinand Lindheimer headed to Texas and arrived at the San Jacinto battlefield the day after the final battle of the Texas Revolution.

Ferdinand Lindheimer lived the remainder of his life in New Braunfels.

Ferdinand Lindheimer persuaded Wilhelm Bruckisch of the Silesian Beekeepers Society to bring black Italian bees to Texas for pollination of the fruit trees in the Guadalupe River valley.

Ferdinand Lindheimer collected fifteen hundred species in the south Texas area, over a period of thirteen years.

In New Braunfels, Ferdinand Lindheimer began a friendship with fellow botanical enthusiast John O Meusebach, who appointed him director of a New Braunfels botanical garden.

Botanical specimens collected by Ferdinand Lindheimer are held in multiple herbaria, including the Plant Resources Center of the University of Texas at Austin, and the National Herbarium of Victoria, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.

In 1852, Ferdinand Lindheimer was hired as an editor, and along with Adolph Douai, helped found the German-language newspaper known as the Die Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung.

Ferdinand Lindheimer is known as the Father of Texas Botany, with over 20 species and one genus bearing his name.