Ernst Gottlieb von Steudel

Ernst Gottlieb von Steudel (1783 to 1856) was a physician of Esslingen in Württemberg, born and died in the same town, who became better known as a botanical author. He studied medicine and natural science at Tübingen from 1801, took his doctorate in 1805 with a dissertation of chemical observations on the acrid principle of certain plants, travelled briefly in Switzerland, Vienna and Halle, and in November 1806 settled in Esslingen as a practising doctor. He soon took the post of district veterinary officer and in 1828 became district physician (Oberamtsarzt), a position he filled with zeal until his death. In the time his medical duties left him he compiled the Nomenclator botanicus, an alphabetical register of plant genera, species and synonyms first issued in 1821 to 1824 and reworked twenty years later, and a synopsis of the grasses and sedges published in 1855. In 1825 he helped found the Württemberg natural history travelling society.