August Carl Joseph Corda

August Carl Joseph Corda (15 November 1809 – September 1849) was a Czech botanist and mycologist. He is considered the founder of Czech scientific illustration. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Corda when citing a botanical name.

Early life and education Corda was born in Reichenberg, Bohemia (now Liberec, Czech Republic), on 15 November 1809. Corda's father was a textile seller. Both of Corda's parents died suddenly only a few weeks following his birth, and Corda was raised by his grandmother, attending the Normale School in Reichenberg. Corda's grandmother died in 1819 and Corda was sent to live with an "unacquainted family" for two years during which time he did not receive schooling. Two years later, Corda was transferred to the care of an uncle in Prague where he attended the "Lyceum of New Prague". As a result of family difficulties, Corda left the Lyceum in 1824 to attend polytechnical school. There, he studied physics under Franz Ignatz Cassian Hallaschka, chemistry under Josef Johann Steinmann, mineralogy under Franz Xaver Zippe, and botany under Ignaz Friedrich Tausch. Corda remained at the Polytechnic only 3 years, long enough to become proficient in chemistry.

After leaving the Polytechnic in 1827, Corda took a job in a chemical factory in Prague for a brief time before returning to study surgery at the University of Prague. Shortly thereafter during an outbreak of Vibrio cholerae, Corda served as an assistant surgeon at the General Hospital in Prague. He continued as a cholera doctor in Rokitzan, Reichstadt, Niemes and Zwickau. Late in 1832, dispirited by his seemingly endless struggle against cholera, Corda quit the practice of medicine. Corda was one of the first mycologists to document the sizes of spores of the fungi he described. Corda remains well known to mycologists, having described many important fungal genera, including Stachybotrys. He perished at sea in 1849 while returning home from a collecting trip in Texas.