Adelbert van Chamiso
Chamiso, The Cape, and The California Poppy
It was on this day that the botanist and German poet Adelbert van Chamiso died.
When he was 30, Chamiso ended up in Switzerland, where he decided to devote himself to botanical research.
In 1815, he was appointed the botanist for a Russian expedition. He collected on the Cape of Good Hope. He ended up in the San Francisco Bay area, and he wrote about the California poppy, which he named Eschscholzia California after his friend Johanns Friedrich Von Eschscholzia.
In return, Eschscholz named a bunch of plants after him - a little quid pro quo.
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Adelbert van Chamiso
