Biography

Albert von Regel was a Swiss-born physician, botanist and archaeologist. He lived for most of his life in Russia, where his father, Eduard August von Regel (1815-1892), was head of the Imperial Botanical Garden in St. Petersburg.

After Russia took the city of Kuldja (Ghuldja) from China in the late 1860s, Albert von Regel was appointed district physician there. Some ten years later, in 1879, he left Kuldja in order to explore the headwaters of the Amu Darya, at the behest of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. On this expedition he studied the vegetation of the area, describing the Turpan oasis in 1880, and then devoted a year to investigating the Bukharan province of Darvaz, before returning to Kuldja.

Russia returned Kuldja to China in 1881 and Regel began exploring Turkestan, sending all kinds of dried and living plant material from the area to his father, including seeds of plants now popularly cultivated, such as Bukhara fleeceflower (Polygonum baldschuanicum Regel). He died in Odessa in 1908, his exploratory journeys having taken their toll on his health.

Sources:
M. Alam, 2009, "Plant Collectors in Afghanistan", Bulletin de la Société vaudoise des Sciences naturelles, 91(3): 316
E.D. Morgan, 1881, "Dr. Regel's Expedition from Kuldja to Turfan in 1879-1880", Proceedings of the Royal Geographic Society, 4(7): 412
G. Sayre, 1975, "Cryptogamae Exsiccatae: an annotated bibliography of exsiccatae of algae, lichens, hepaticae, and musci. V. Unpublished Exsiccatae: I. Collectors", Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden, 19(3): 384.