Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria Australian National Herbarium BIOGRAPHY

Leichhardt, F.W. Ludwig (1813 - 1848)

Born in Trebatsch, Prussia, on 23 October 1813, died on an expedition in central Australia, 1848.

Well educated in natural history, Leichhardt arrived in Australia in February 1842. He led an expedition from Dalby (Queensland) overland to Port Essington (Northern Territory), October 1844-December 1845. A second expedition set out from the Darling Downs, Queensland, for Western Australia in 1846, but failed and returned. An attempt to repeat this expedition in 1848 resulted in the disappearance of the party without trace. Leichhardt was based in Sydney (New South Wales) between expeditions, and collected there, between Newcastle (New South Wales) and Moreton Bay (Queensland), and on his expeditions. His collections are lodged in MEL and NSW, with a few duplicates elsewhere (e.g. B, BM, HO and P).

Extracted from: A.E.Orchard (1999) A History of Systematic Botany in Australia, in Flora of Australia Vol.1, 2nd ed., ABRS. [consult for source references]