German naturalist and explorer. Eduard Poeppig was born in 1798 in Plauen, Saxony, and grew up in Leipzig, where he later studied medicine. After qualifying as a physician in 1822, he departed on a solo expedition to the Americas, supported financially by a small number of friends and colleagues in Leipzig, including Schwägrichen and Kuntze who received sets of specimens in exchange. He spent 1822 to 1824 in Cuba, 1824 to 1826 in Philadelphia, and the remainder of the trip in South America, returning to Germany late in 1832 with valuable zoological and botanical collections. The account of his South American journey, Reise in Chile, Peru und auf dem Amazonenstrome, während der Jahre 1827-1832, was published in two volumes in 1835 and 1836.
Poeppig only the third European, after Francisco de Orellana (1542) and Charles Marie de la Condamine (1744), to travel the entire length of the Amazon River. In all he brought or sent home some 17,000 botanical specimens, representing some 4000 species. His best collections from Chile (1827-1829) were bequeathed to Berlin and to the science museum in Leipzig, which he had helped to establish; the most important set from Peru and Amazonia (1829-1832) to Vienna.
Soon after his return to Germany, Poeppig was appointed professor of zoology at the University of Leipzig, a position he held until his death, and published his first account of new taxa, Fragmentum synopseos plantarum phanerogamarum ad auctore annis 1827-1829 in Chile lectarum. He was the first botanist to produce a published account of Victoria amazonica Sowerby, which he attributed to the genus Euryale Salisb. His major botanical work, Nova genera ac Species Plantarum quas in regno, Chiliensi, Peruviano, ac Terra Amazonica, anni 1827-1832 lectarum, published in three volumes, describes 528 species, including 31 new genera and 477 new species. For the first two volumes he was aided by Stephan Endlicher. Other novelties are described in separate monographs by G. Kunze (ferns), C.F.P. van Martius (palms), and K.S. Kunth (Cyperaceae). His collections were also indispensable to the compilers of the Flora brasiliensis.
Poeppig was the major contributor of ethnological, geographical, and biological articles about the Americas to the Allgemeine Encyclopaedie der Wissenschaft und Künste, which ceased publication in 1847. He is commemorated in the names of numerous plant species, including Erythrina poeppigiana O.F. Cook, Geonoma poeppigiana Mart., Psychotria poeppigiana Müll. Arg. and Zamia poeppigiana Mart. & Eichler.
Sources:
F.A. Stafleu, 1969, "Poeppig and Endlicher's Nova Genera", Taxon, 18(3): 321-323.
