INTKODUCTION. 



Friedrich Welwitsch was born at Maria-Saal, near Klagenfurt, 

 in Carinthia, Lower Austria, on the 5th February 1806. He was 

 one of a large family, his father being the owner of an extensive 

 farm. During his school age his father encouraged liim in 

 botanical tastes, intending him for the legal profession, and to 

 this end sent him, in due course, to the University of Vienna. 

 But an irresistible tendency towards Natural Science drew him 

 from the Law, and he made no progress in legal learning. His 

 father in his displeasure withcbew the allowance from the young- 

 student, who was then left to himself, and is said to have sup- 

 ported himself by writing critiques on the theatres. With a view 

 to a more congenial living, however, Welwitsch entered the medical 

 faculty of the University, and at the same time pursued Botany 

 with increased assiduity. His first publication was " Observations 

 on the Cryptogamic Flora of Lower Austria," which obtained a 

 prize offered by the Mayor of Vienna in 1834. Somewhere about 

 this period he was employed by the Government to report on the 

 Cholera in Carinthia, and this proof of official confidence reconciled 

 his father to his change of profession. For a while Welwitsch 

 travelled as tutor with a nobleman, and then returned to Vienna 

 to complete his studies. In 1836 he graduated in medicine, his 

 thesis being a synopsis of the Nostochinece of Lower Austria. At 

 this time he was intimate with Fenzl and other Austrian botanists, 

 and spent much time in the Botanical Museum at Vienna. After 

 another period of tutorship, his course in life began to shape itself. 

 After attending, in 1837, a meeting of the German Naturalists' 

 Association — the model of our British Association —which he 

 addressed on the subject of the geographical chstribution of chalk 

 plants on granite hills, his mind became fixed on foreign travel, 

 and an opportunity presently offered itself to put his wishes into 

 execution. 



In 1839 Dr. Welwitsch accepted a commission from the Unio 

 Itineraria of Wiirtemberg, of which he was a member, to explore 

 and collect the plants of the Azores and Cape de Verde Islands ; 

 he was also induced to take this step because an act of youthful 

 indiscretion on his part, in the course of enjoying too freely the 

 gaieties of Vienna, rendered it expedient for him to leave Austria 



