Hugo Flecker

Hugo Flecker (7 December 1884 – 25 June 1957) was an Australian medical practitioner, radiotherapist, toxicologist and natural historian. He founded the North Queensland Naturalist Club in 1932, whose herbarium grew into the now heritage-listed Flecker Botanical Gardens in Cairns, Queensland. He identified the deadly box jellyfish, Chironex fleckeri.

Early life Hugo Flecker was born in Melbourne, Victoria in 1884.

North Queensland Naturalist Club From the early 1930s there were community calls for the establishment of a formal botanical garden within the recreation reserve in Cairns. Momentum came largely from Dr Hugo Flecker and the North Queensland Naturalist Club, which he founded in 1932. Flecker was a radiologist with a strong interest in natural history, especially toxic plants and animals. He undertook valuable work on the Queensland Finger Cherry and the Tar Tree and identified the deadly box jelly, Chironex fleckeri. From 1935 he contributed a weekly column to the Cairns Post on behalf of the Naturalist Club, in which he publicly advocated the establishment of a botanic garden at the recreation reserve.