Biography

German-born botanist also known by his noble title, Egon Viktor Moritz Karl Maria, Prinz von Ratibor und Corvey, Prinz zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst. James West, as he called himself in his adopted home of California, was a founding member of the California Horticultural Society, and was instrumental in creating the University of California Botanic Garden at Berkeley in the early 1930s. He participated in the University's first expedition to the Andes (1935-1936), and continued to collect plants from Bolivia and Argentina until 1937. He was renowned for his language skills (he was fluent in at least five) and had a particular interest in succulents and cacti, perhaps formed during his botanic and horticultural training in Arizona. A familiar face of inter-war San Francisco's liberal scene, he was a close friend of photographer and horticulturalist Imogen Cunningham. She described him as an eccentric who preferred to inhabit a tent in the garden of his boarding house rather than a lodging room. It is sometimes stated that he took on his American name when stranded in the United States during the First World War and forced to work on a lumber camp, being cut off from his family funds in Europe. After studies in Arizona, he moved to California in 1928 or 1929. He left the Bay Area without warning in 1938 and after a brief reunion with his family, drowned in the River Spree, Germany, in 1939.