Biography

German botanist from Munich. Herman Merxmüller's interest in botany was recognised early on by his teachers, who encouraged him to collect in the surrounding countryside and Bavarian mountains. At the age of 17 he became a member of the Bavarian Botanical Society and after the war received a prestigious scholarship from the Maximilianeums Foundation, which made it possible for him to study biology at the University of Munich.

He completed his studies within five years, with a doctoral dissertation on plant distribution in the Alps, and after graduating took up a post as a scientific assistant at the Botanische Staatsammlung, where he had formed close ties as a student. Enlisted by its director, Karl Suessenguth, to assist on a prodromus of southern African plant groups, Merxmüller initially focused his research on the Compositae. His Compositenstudien I (1950), a treatise on the collections of Sigmund Rehm from South West Africa, Transvaal, and Cape Province, was the first in a long series of works that ultimately came to 11 volumes with the last published in 1984. The two scientists produced only one co-publication before Suessenguth's premature death in 1955, 'A contribution to the flora of the Marandellas District, Southern Rhodesia' (1951). Merxmüller presented the other important work of his career, a revision of Geigeria, as his inaugural dissertation on joining the teaching staff of the University of Munich.

After Suessenguth's death, he took over as director of the Botanische Staatsammlung and assumed the responsibility of completing the Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika, which he succeeded in publishing in the course of six years. Several journeys to southern Africa during these years (1957-1958, 1963, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1977) gave him first-hand knowledge of the region's flora and formed the basis of much of his subsequent work.

In 1958 he created the Institut für Systematische Botanik at the University of Munich, which became an important centre for plant systematic research in central Europe, and a decade later he also assumed direction of the Botanic Garden, thus bringing together the three institutes in Munich devoted to systematic botany. He held all three posts until 1985 when failing eyesight forced his retirement. He received many awards and honours for his scientific achievements, including the Jubilee Medal from the National Botanic Gardens of South Africa. He is commemorated in the genus Merxmuellera Conert and in many African species including Barleria merxmuelleri P.G. Mey., Carex merxmuelleri Podlech, Corchorus merxmuelleri Wild, Erica merxmuelleri Dulffer, Hermannia merxmuelleri Friedr. and Sutera merxmuelleri Roessler (= Jamesbrittenia merxmuelleri (Roessler) Hilliard).

Sources:
J. Grau, (trans. O.A. Leistner), 1988, "Obituary: Hermann Merxmüller (1920-1988)", Bothalia, 18(2): 325-327.