August Fendler

Augustus Fendler (January 10, 1813 – November 27, 1883), alternatively written as August Fendler, was a Prussian-born American natural history collector.

Early travels Fendler first attended preparatory school at the age of 12. After four years, he discontinued his education for financial reasons and apprenticed for the town clerk. He disliked the work, and yearned for travel.

Fendler gained his first taste of exploration as a physician's assistant. He partook in an inspection trip of the cholera quarantine camps on the Russian border of Prussia. Upon his return, he briefly worked as a tanner, then spent a year in a polytechnical school based in Berlin. He dropped out and found his way to Bremen, eventually sailing to Baltimore, Maryland in 1836.

Yellow fever drove Fendler from Texas, and he became a school teacher in Illinois. Suddenly driven by the desire for a solitary life, he settled in a dilapidated log cabin on an island on the Missouri River near Wellington. He remained here for six months, surviving off of wild game and reading. He left after the island became flooded. In 1841, he returned to Königsberg, Prussia.

After two years of collecting in Colonia Tovar, Fendler was forced to take longer excursions to find new specimens. He traveled from Maracai to Puerto Colombia, as well as from Valencia to San Estevan. He also traveled from Petaquire to the Atlantic coast. Specimens collected by Fendler were also distributed to herbaria worldwide in two moss series named Musci Boreali-Americani, sive specimina exsiccata muscorum in Americae Respublicis Foederatis detectorum, conjunctis studiis W. S. Sullivant et L. Lesquereux (1857, 1866) and in the lichen series Reliquiae Tuckermanianae (1937-1942).

Later life The Fendlers returned to St. Louis in 1864, and they purchased a densely wooded tract of land in Allenton, Missouri. They cleared the land and homesteaded for the next 7 years. Fendler accepted a short-term offer from Asa Gray to work as his curator in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Hydrangeaceae) Fendlerella (Greene) A.Heller

Species

(Adiantaceae) Argyrochosma fendleri (Kunze) Windham (Annonaceae) Annona fendleri (R.E.Fr.) H.Rainer (Apiaceae) Tiedemannia fendleri J.M.Coult. & Rose (Apocynaceae) Amblyanthera fendleri Müll.Arg. (Araceae) Monstera fendleri Engl. (Araliaceae) Dendropanax fendleri Seem. (Asclepiadaceae) Funastrum fendleri Schltr. (Asteraceae) Heteropleura fendleri (Sch.Bip.) Rydb. (Blechnaceae) Spicanta fendleri (Hook.) Kuntze (Malvaceae) Sphaeralcea fendleri A.Gray (Orthotrichaceae) Macromitrium fendleri Müll.Hal. (Ranunculaceae) Thalictrum fendleri Engelm. ex A.Gray (Selaginellaceae) Selaginella fendleri (Underw.) Hieron.

Publications Fendler, Augustus. The Mechanism of the Universe, and Its Primary Effort-Exerting Powers. The Nature of Force and the Constitution of Matter. Commercial Printing Co., 1874.