Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher

Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher (24 June 1804 - 28 March 1849) was an Austrian botanist, numismatist and Sinologist. he became the director of the Botanical Garden of Vienna.

He studied theology and was given the minor orders. In 1828 he was appointed to the Austrian national library to arrange anew the collection of the manuscripts. Meanwhile he studied Natural History, in particular botany and East-Asian languages. He wrote the fundamenals of Chinese grammar.

In 1840 he became professor at and the director of the Botanical Garden of Vienna. He wrote what was to be for his time the most comprehensive description of the Plant Kingdom according to a natural system. At the proposal of Endlinger, it contained for the first time images with text, together with the reissue of Franz Unger's book "Grundzüge der Botanik" (Fundamentals of Botany).

Together with Joseph Freiherr Hammer von Purgstall he founded the imperial Akademie der Wissenschaften (Academy of Science).

Since he had a liberal mentality, he was asked during the revolution of 1848 to act as mediator between both sides.

In 1848 he became also member of the Frankfurt Parliament and the assembly at Kroměříž.

Important works include Genera Plantarum Secundum Ordines Naturales Disposita (1836-50), Synopsis Coniferarum (1847), and the establishment of the botanical journal Annalen des Wiener Museums der Naturgeschichte (1835 on). He described many new plant genera, perhaps most notably the genus Sequoia. The genus Endlicheria of the family Lauraceae was named in his honour.