FREDERIK WELWITSCH. 1 



Frederik Welwitsch, M. D., died in London, on the 

 20th of October last, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. He 

 was a native of Carinthia ; was educated at Vienna ; was com- 

 missioned by the Wiirtemberg Unio Itineraria to collect the 

 plants of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands ; but on reach- 

 ing Lisbon and finding good employment there, he made 

 Portugal the field of his investigations, until, in 1850, he was 

 sent by the Portuguese government to explore the natural 

 history of its possessions on the west coast of Africa. His 

 exploration of Angola and Benguela was rewarded by the 

 discovery of more highly curious plants, probably, than any 

 other that has been undertaken since Australia was opened to 

 botanists ; among them, and strangest of all, the genus which 

 commemorates the discoverer, Welwitschia mirabilis, which 

 Dr. Hooker, who described and illustrated it, does " not hesi- 

 tate to consider the most wonderful, in a botanical point of 

 view, that has been brought to light during the present cen- 

 tury." Perhaps the limitation in the latter clause of the 

 sentence is needless. This inhabits a most arid waste. In 

 another district, under almost opposite conditions, Welwitsch 

 had the good fortune to find the only Cactaceous plant indig- 

 enous out of America, namely, Rhipsalis Cassytha, and in a 

 lake a new and most remote habitat of our Brasenia peltata ! 

 In his " Sertum Angolense," a splendid memoir published by 

 the Linnaean Society, with twenty-five plates, some of his most 

 interesting discoveries are described ; but the still unpublished 

 portions of his collections must furnish most important con- 

 tributions to the " Flora of Tropical Africa," now in progress 

 under the orders of the British Colonial department and the 

 editorship of Professor Oliver of Kew. It is to be hoped 

 that they are to be more fully available for this flora than 

 they have thus far been. 



1 American Journal of Science and Arts, 3 ser., v. 396. (1873.) 



