Belgian botanist and geologist. Born in Paris of Italian parents, Henri Guillaume Galeotti was raised from early childhood in Brussels and studied at the Etablissement Géographique established by the eminent Flemish cartographer Philippe Vandermalaen in 1830. His graduating thesis, on the geology of Brabant, won the gold medal from the Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles Lettres in 1835. Galeotti, however, was not there to accept his prize, having already left on a trip sponsored by the Vandermaelen brothers to study the geology and plants of Mexico.
Between 1835 and 1840, he amassed an extensive collection of Mexican flora, about 7,000 herbarium specimens with many duplicates, as well as living plants, including a wide variety of cacti, for which he had a particular fondness. Within days of arriving in Veracruz in September 1835, he discovered a number of new species. The next several months were spent in the rich region around Xalapa and the German colony of Mirador. In the summer of 1836, he collected in Real del Monte with the German botanist Charles Ehrenberg.
For three years he explored the plateau of Mexico and in the west, returning at the end to Mirador, where he established a botanical station. He was perhaps the first botanist to climb the Cofre del Perote, and in August 1838 made one of the first recorded ascents of El Pico de Orizaba, accompanied by his friends and fellow naturalists Funck, Ghiesbreght, and Linden. From their camp, situated in a cavern at about 11,000 feet, Galeotti collected between 400 to 500 species of high altitude plants.
During his last year in Mexico, he travelled south through Puebla to Oaxaca, where he made his richest collections. He left for Europe in June 1840. En route he collected a few plants in Cuba. Having declined the offer of a position at the University of Brussels, he set himself up in business as a cactus importer based in Louvain and served as administrator of the Société Royale de Flore and editor of the Journal d'Horticulture Practique. His collections were worked on by Lemaire, Trinius, Richard, and Martens. In 1853, he was appointed director of the Jardin Botanique de Bruxelles, a post he held until his early death, from tuberculosis, at the age of 44.
Sources:
T. Burton, 2005, A. Lasègue, 1845, Musée Botanique de M. Benjamin Delessert: 209-211, C.V. Morton, 1971, American Fern Journal, 61(2): 59-75.
