Biography

Johann Friedrich Gustav von Eschscholtz was a Baltic Russian physician, naturalist and professor at Dorpat (Tartu) University. He took part in two three-year expeditions to the west coast of North America.

Eschscholtz, of German descent, was born in the Livonian city of Dorpat, then part of the Russian Empire (now Tartu, Estonia). He studied medicine at the city's university, where he would go on to serve as assistant to Professor C.F. von Ledebour and later as Professor of Anatomy (from 1819). From 1822 he was director of the zoological museum and gave lectures on zoology.

Prior to his appointment at Dorpat, Eschscholtz participated in a circumnavigation of the globe sponsored by the Russian Emperor. Under the command of Captain Otto von Kotzebue, the object of the voyage was to search for a northern passage between the Pacific and Atlantic, meanwhile exploring the coast of North America and the Pacific Ocean. Scientists Eschscholtz and Adelbert von Chamisso were to make natural history collections, with painter Louis Choris producing artworks. Eschscholtz's role was originally to have been filled by Ledebour, however the professor's health was not sound and he proposed Eschscholtz to take his place, as both naturalist and ship's surgeon.

The expedition ship, the Rurick, left Kronstadt on 30 June 1815, calling in at the Canary Islands in September before crossing the Atlantic to Santa Catarina, Brazil. The ship rounded Cape Horn in January 1816 and reached Petropovlavsk, Kamchatka, in July. From here it went on to the Bering Strait and in September headed south for California.

Landing at San Francisco, Eschscholtz was able to make fruitful explorations over the course of a month's stay. The ship then departed for the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) on 1 November, where the party stayed until mid-December.

In 1817 the Rurick's course was set for Polynesia before a return to the Arctic to resume a search for a passage east to the Pacific. The quest was abandoned, however, in mid-July, Captain Kotzebue suffering ill health. The expedition travelled home by way of Hawaii and the Philippines, which were reached in December 1817. The Rurick continued on around Cape Horn and dropped anchor at St Petersburg in August 1818.

Kotzebue published a three-volume account of the voyage, including reports from Chamisso and Eschscholtz, whose work is found in the third volume. Their collections, meanwhile, were published in the journals Horae physicae Berolinenses (1820), the Memoires de l'Academie Imperiale des Sciences de St. Petersbourg (1826) and Linnaea (between 1826 and 1836). Eschscholtz's botanical collections from his time in California were published under the title "Descriptiones plantarum novae Californiae, adjectis florum exoticorum analysibus" (1826). An English translation of Kotzebue's account of the 1815-1818 journey was published in 1821 as A voyage of discovery into the South Sea and Beering's Straits … undertaken in the years 1815-1818 … under the command of the Lieutenant … Otto von Kotzebue.

Five years after his return, Eschscholtz was invited once more to accompany Kotzebue on a journey to the Pacific, aboard the Predpriatie (Enterprise). Eschscholz made extensive natural history collections, especially of Coleoptera, in the Polynesian islands, Alaska and California. Kotzebue and Eschscholz published an account of the voyage as A new voyage round the world in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26 (1830).

Eschscholtz also published an illustrated Zoologischer Atlas in 1829-1833, describing the new fauna he had found during the 1823-1826 voyage, and System der Akalephen (1829). Many of his collections were described and published by others, however, for he died prematurely in 1831.

The California Poppy, Eschscholzia californica Cham., which he had discovered during the voyage of the Rurick, was named in his honour by Chamisso. He subsequently returned the favour by naming Lupinus chamissonis Eschsch. in honour of his friend.

Eschscholtz's name would originally have been spelt Escholtz in German, but when it was translated into the Cyrillic alphabet, the 'sch' became two sounds, expressed by the same Russian letter. In its conversion back to Roman script, the resulting spelling was Eschscholtz.

Sources:
E. Bretschneider, 1898, History of European Botanical Discoveries In China, 1: 321
H. Dolezal, 1959, "Eschscholtz, Johann Friedrich von" in Neue Deutsche Biographie, 4: 650: online edn:
www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd116569514.html, accessed 26 October 2012
H.E. Lloyd, 1821, A voyage of discovery into the South Sea and Beering's Straits, for the purpose of exploring a north-east passage, undertaken in the years 1815-1818 in the ship Rurick, under the command of the Lieutenant in the Russian Navy, Otto von Kotzebue
S.D. McKelvey, 1998, "Botanical Explorations of the Trans-Mississippi", Fremontia, 26(3): 20-23
Calfora.net:
www.calflora.net/botanicalnames/pageE.html, accessed 26 October 2012.