German naturalist who founded and directed the Natural History Museum of the Caucasus at Tiflis, Russia (now Tbilisi, Georgia). Gustav Radde was widely travelled and known as an authority on the birds and plants of the Caucasus region. He was born in Tiegenhof, Danzig (now known as Nowy Dwór Gdanski, Poland), where his father was a schoolmaster. As a boy he showed an interest in natural history and in 1852 was employed as an assistant to the botanist Christian von Steven, working in the Crimea.
In 1854 Radde published a memoir on the botany of the Tauric Peninsula and the following year was called upon to join a Russian expedition to Amurland, far eastern Siberia, led by Ludwig Schwartz. Taking part as botanist and ornithologist, Radde published his observations from this four-year exploration under the title Reisen im Süden von Ost Sibirien (1862-1863). He moved to Tiflis in 1864, founding there a natural history museum and library. He remained here for the rest of his days as head of the museum, apart from periods exploring. Some of his trips were made in the company of members of the Russian Imperial family, with whom he was on good terms. He travelled with Duke Michael to Japan and India in 1895, sailing from St. Petersburg via the Suez Canal and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) on the way out. On their return journey they stopped at Goa and parts of British India including Darjeeling. Two years later he joined other members of the family on a trip to North Africa.
Radde authored several works on the flora and fauna of the Central Asian region and about his travels, such as Reisen an der Persisch-Russischen Grenze (1886) and Ornis Caucasica (1884). One of his last significant works was Grundzüge der Pflanzenverbreitung in den Kaukasusländern (1899), which deals with the range of flora in the Caucasus region. At the time of his death, aged 71, he had completed three of six volumes giving an account of the collections of the Caucasus Museum.
Sources:
Anon., 1903, Botanical Gazette, 36(1): 79
Anon., 1903, The Ibis, 439-440
Anon., 1903, The Auk, 20(4): 458-459.
