August Schenk


Joseph August Schenk was an Austrian-born, German botanist and paleobotanist.
In 1837 he obtained his medical doctorate from the University of Munich, followed by studies in botany at the Universities of Erlangen, Berlin and Vienna. In 1840 he earned his PhD in botany at Munich and during the following year, received his habilitation for botany with the dissertation "Genera et species Cyperacearum, quae in regno Graeco, archipelago et in insulis". From 1850 to 1868, he was a full professor of botany at the University of Würzburg, followed by a professorship at the University of Leipzig, where he was a successor to Georg Heinrich Mettenius. At Leipzig, he was also director of its botanical gardens.
The genus Schenkia was named in honor by August Grisebach in 1853.

Published works

With Christian Luerssen, he was co-author of . Also, he made contributions towards Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen's "China", and edited the section on Alstroemeriaceae in Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius' Flora Brasiliensis. The following are a few of Schenk's principal works: