The Day Nature Lost Its Most Devoted Scholar: Remembering Alexander Von Humboldt
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
May 5, 1859
On this day, the illustrious Alexander Von Humboldt departed this mortal coil at the dignified age of 89.
One cannot help but note when the botanical world lost one of its most distinguished luminaries, dear gardeners.
In 1806, Friedrich Georg Weitsch captured our dashing naturalist's likeness, a mere two years following his triumphant return from an audacious five-year expedition through the wilds of Central and South America.
Humboldt, ever the strategic socialite, did not venture alone—he secured the French botanist Aimé Bonplant as his companion in 1799. Weitsch, with artistic license that would make our modern painters blush, created a romantically idealized Ecuadorian vista as backdrop. One presumes this was in homage to Humboldt's conquest of Chimborazo Mountain, then believed to be the world's most formidable peak. Perhaps Weitsch imagined our intrepid explorer surveying his domain from such lofty heights!
The painting itself is a spectacle worthy of gossip. Amidst a veritable jungle paradise, an extravagant palm provides shade for our resting adventurer. The portrait reveals an uncommonly handsome Humboldt perched upon a substantial boulder, his top hat resting upside down behind him like a discarded lover. Weitsch portrays the 37-year-old wearing a shirt of such extraordinary puffiness it would provoke envy in certain American comedians, complemented by a pinkish-orange vest and tan breeches that surely set tongues wagging in Berlin society. In his lap rests an open leather-bound Flora, while his right hand delicately holds a specimen of "Rhexia seciosa" (known in more refined circles as Meriania speciosa). A conspicuous barometer leans against the boulder—a not-so-subtle symbol of Humboldt's revolutionary principle of measuring environmental conditions while cataloging botanical specimens.
King Ferdinand, clearly a man of discerning taste, was so enamored with this portrait that he displayed it prominently in the Berlin Palace and commissioned two additional paintings featuring Humboldt's American adventures. One can only imagine the courtly whispers this favoritism inspired!
Humboldt was that most dangerous of men—a polymath—whose contributions sprawled across scientific disciplines with scandalous abandon. He crafted a safety lamp for miners, discovered the Peru Current (now bearing his name in a delicious stroke of vanity), and boldly theorized that South America and Africa had once been scandalously conjoined. He christened the "torrid zone"—that sweltering area near the equator. How appropriate for the region he explored; torrid indeed, in all senses of the word!
During his Russian sojourn, he predicted the location of Russia's first diamond deposits with uncanny precision that bordered on the supernatural.
Despite his scientific flirtations with the sublime, Humboldt maintained a pragmatist's heart. It was the Great Alexandre Von Humboldt himself who pronounced this delectable morsel of wisdom:
"Spend for your table less than you can afford, for your house rent just what you can afford, and for your dress more than you can afford."
Imagine, dear gardeners, a man of science advocating sartorial extravagance! One cannot help but admire such audacity.
Humboldt developed his own revolutionary theory for the web of life, weaving together observations that lesser minds would have overlooked.
"The aims I strive for are an understanding of nature as a whole, proof of the working together of all the species of nature," Humboldt wrote with characteristic ambition.
"Everything is Interaction," he noted in his Mexican diary in 1803—a statement so profound in its simplicity that we gardeners would do well to remember it as we tend to our own modest plots. The interconnectedness he observed in the grand theaters of South American wilderness applies equally to our herbaceous borders and kitchen gardens.
As we mark the anniversary of his passing, let us celebrate this botanical giant who understood that nature's true beauty lies not merely in its individual specimens but in the intricate dance of relationships between all living things. Humboldt's legacy blooms eternal in the gardens of scientific thought.
