Biography

German botanist. Eduard Otto started as an assistant to his father, Christian Friedrich Otto (1782-1856), the renowned head gardener of the Berlin Botanical Garden. In September 1838, he embarked on a mission to collect living and dried specimens of New World plants for the botanical garden and royal herbarium. He was accompanied on the voyage out by the naturalists Ludwig Karl Georg Pfeiffer and Johannes (Juan) Christian Gundlach, and with them made excursions for nearly a year to various parts of the island. Otto left Cuba in September 1839 to visit New York and Philadelphia, and from November 1839 until his departure for Europe in March 1841, he explored in Venezuela and neighbouring countries. Among the localities he visited were La Guaira, Orituco, Caracas, Aragua Valley, Maracay, Puerto Cabello, Cumana, San Antonio, Caripe, Barrancas, some of the Orinoco Missions, and Ciudad Bolívar. Later, Otto held the post of head gardener at Hamburg for about forty years and was editor of the garden publication Hamburger Garten and Blumenzeitung.

Sources:
C.V. Morton, 1970, "The Fern Collections in Some European Herbaria", American Fern Journal, 60(2): 49-61
A. Lasègue, 1845, Musée Botanique de M. Benjamin Delessert: 456.